The Nebraska Sandhills

We went away for the weekend for a short trip up into the Nebraska Sand Hills.  With the cows safely at the summer pasture and the crops all planted, we have a window of opportunity to get away and so we did.  The Sand Hills cover about 20,000 square miles and are made up of sand dunes deposited there after the last ice age. But native grasses cover the dunes and so it does not look like you would expect.

The area is sparsely populated, so there is plenty of wide open prairie dotted with cattle and windmills.

There are also wildflowers and lots of birds. In fact, the main purpose of our trip was this crazy character, the Sharp Tail Grouse.

Every spring the males gather atop high hills to display and attract females. They put on an amazing show and we have been wanting to see them for years now. They are early risers and so we had to do the same to catch the show – 4 am both Sunday and Monday morning.

We got back home yesterday evening and when I uploaded my pics onto my computer I was shocked to see that I had taken over 1000. I’ve not had a chance to go through them all, but will as soon as I can, and will have posts featuring wide open prairies, century old windmills, wild animals, and of course the antics of the Sharp Tail -with video so you can see all the fun too, without getting up at 4am.

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