Photo Gallery
Images by Rick Wright with one from Wikimedia C0mmons (wc)
The Platte River, broad and shallow as it passes through central Nebraska, is a vital haven for migrating birds…
…including the more than half a million Sandhill Cranes that stage here each March.
The area also attracts large numbers of waterfowl, shorebirds, and raptors, including the scarce Ferruginous Hawk.
Farther east, where the Platte flows into the Missouri River, open grassy woodlands…
…are the haunt of American Woodcock… (wc)
…and remnants of upland forest are home to such largely eastern specialties as…
…Pileated Woodpecker and Tufted Titmouse.
The huge and handsome Eastern Fox Squirrel is found across Nebraska…
…as is the very local Harris’s Sparrow.
But the stars of the show each spring are the Sandhill Cranes…
…roosting on the shallow Platte, sometimes joined by a rare Whooping Crane.
North of the Platte River, the Nebraska Sandhills cover some 20,000 wide-open square miles.
Here we might run into the unspeakably cute Thirteen-lined Ground-Squirrel, one of half a dozen sciurids possible on our tour.
The few towns in the Sandhills live from ranching—but ecotourism is on the rise.
Every spring, our enterprising local guide drives decommissioned schoolbuses out onto the grasslands…
…where we get breath-takingly close views of dancing Greater Prairie-chickens…
…and they get equally good views of us.
Another bus overlooks the lek of Sharp-tailed Grouse, which whirl and spin like feathered windup toys.
Only the sudden appearance of a predator—a Coyote, Bobcat, or Bald Eagle—stops the show.
American White Pelicans are the sign that spring—ushered in by the cranes—is in full and glorious swing.