Nebraska Panhandle Nature Photography

| NEBRASKA |

Western Nebraska has unique landmarks that tell a story of the great migration of the 1800s, the wild west, Cowboys, expansion, and exploration. Visiting the North Platte River Valley for the first time, you’ll probably ask yourself, as I did, “How does anything survive in this open wilderness of rolling grass and majestic buttes?”

By: Hawk Buckman

At first glance, the landscape doesn’t convey the wild diversity of life that makes western Nebraska home. You have to delve deeper into the area to begin learning about the species that live here, and there’s only one way to experience it; by being here. 

On my first visit to the panhandle of Nebraska, I was awe-struck at the scenery that makes up western Nebraska, like many visiting for the first time. Buttes rising from the surrounding landscape of rolling grasslands and skies that burned with rich colors at sunrise set a pristine backdrop of the old west.

Being a documentary, environmental, and wildlife conservation photographer, I immediately wanted to explore the area for wildlife. I was familiar with the Rocky Mountains and the nature I could often find there with relative ease, but not the high plains of Nebraska. Nebraska demands more effort in understanding the environment if you’re to take advantage of it as a photographer.

Animals like elk, moose, deer, foxes, and other predators and grazers, are easy to find in the high country of the Rocky Mountains. Not in western Nebraska. Encountering a small herd of deer tucked away in a ravine near a county (dirt) road is familiar, but finding large animals like elk is much more difficult. Although, my first visit to the North Platte River Valley did offer two moose that were near an irrigation ditch. Unfortunately, no one is looking for moose in western Nebraska while driving, and semi-trucks killed both animals. How the moose arrived in Nebraska is still a mystery, as they’re uncommon in the area.

What western Nebraska lacks in large animals other than horses and cows is made up for by the central and western flyways, which hundreds of thousands of birds use to migrate north to south, and back again each year. Most notable is the sandhill crane, which uses the Niobrara, and South Platte Rivers, in central Nebraska as a holdover when traveling North to their breeding grounds in the Spring but, the sandhill cranes aren’t the only bird species that make up the diversity of birdlife in western Nebraska.

Western Ospry (Pandion haliaetus)

Every spring, beginning in mid to late April, western Ospreys arrive in western Nebraska after making the long journey from coastal regions of North, and South America, where they either begin to build a nest near the North Platte River or rebuild and dress nesting platforms that they used the previous year.

The osprey differs in several respects from other diurnal birds of prey. Its toes are of equal length, its tarsi are reticulate, and its talons are rounded rather than grooved. The osprey and owls are the only raptors whose outer toe is reversible, allowing them to grasp their prey with two toes in front and two behind. This is particularly helpful when they grab slippery fish.

The Osprey is the second most widely distributed raptor species, after the peregrine falcon, and is one of only six land birds with a cosmopolitan distribution. It is found in temperate and tropical regions of all continents except Antarctica. It breeds from Alaska and Newfoundland south to the Gulf Coast and Florida in North America, wintering further south from the southern United States to Argentina.

American and Canadian breeders winter in South America, although some stay in the southernmost U.S. states such as Florida and California. Some ospreys from Florida migrate to South America.

In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the main threats to osprey populations were egg collectors and hunting of the adults along with other birds of prey, but osprey populations declined drastically in many areas in the 1950s and 1960s; this appeared to be in part due to the toxic effects of insecticides such as DDT on reproduction. The pesticide interfered with the bird’s calcium metabolism, which resulted in thin-shelled, easily broken, or infertile eggs. Possibly because of the banning of DDT in many countries in the early 1970s, together with reduced persecution, the osprey, as well as other affected bird of prey species, have made significant recoveries.

Sandhill crane (A. canadensis)

Named after the Sandhills of Nebraska, the sandhill crane draws thousands of photographers and wildlife enthusiasts yearly to central Nebraska near Kearney and North Platte.

Many people don’t know that the sandhill crane can be found in western Nebraska as they follow the western flyway in survival groups that can be made up of thousands of birds.

Near Scottsbluff, NE, sandhill cranes predominately occupy four specific areas during their spring migration. North of Lake Minatare near Winters Creek, in the fields on Lake Minatare Road, and near Little Lake Alice, and the adjacent fields.

Don’t look for sandhill cranes on or near Lake Minatare or the North Platte River water, as they don’t frequent these areas often. The best places to find them are in the fields eating insects and discarded corn kernels from the previous year’s harvest.

Great blue heron (Ardea herodias)

If you look along the banks of the North Platte River in western Nebraska from mid-April through late July, you will, without a doubt, find a Great blue heron fishing along the sand bars and among the tall grass of western Nebraska.

The great blue heron is found throughout most of North America, as far north as Alaska and the southern Canadian provinces in the summer. The range extends south through Florida, Mexico, and the Caribbean to South America in winter.

Birds east of the Rocky Mountains in the northern part of their range are migratory and winter in the coastal areas of the Southern United States, Central America, or northern South America. They are year-round residents from the Southern United States southwards and on the lower Pacific coast. However, their hardiness is such that individuals often remain through cold northern winters, as well, so long as fish-bearing waters remain unfrozen (which may be the case only in flowing water such as streams, creeks, and rivers).

This species usually breeds in colonies close to lakes or other wetlands. Adults generally return to the colony site after winter from December from warmer climates in California and Florida to March in colder climates in Canada. Most of the time, Great blue heron colonies include only great blue herons, but sometimes other species of herons will nest together in a group called a heronry.

Colorado, eastern Wyoming, and western Nebraska are regularly home to large heronries. I’ve personally counted over one hundred birds in a single cottonwood tree near the North Platte River west of Mitchell, Nebraska. I have witnessed even larger populations in eastern Wyoming near Horse Creek northwest of Lagrange, Wyoming.

The size of these colonies ranges between five and 500 nests per colony and about 125 nests per colony.

American avocet (Recurvirostra americana)

I’ve frequently seen avocets in western Colorado near the Arapaho Wildlife Refuge but never in western Nebraska until the Spring of 2021 while driving a dirt road parallel to the North Platte River.

To be honest, I was shocked. I had a hard time wrapping my head around the fact that I was witnessing these amazing birds on the sand banks of the river. I later learned that my perception of the avocet’s habits was incorrect, not the bird’s behavior.

More common in Central America, Mexico, and the Caribbean, the American avocet migrates north to the rivers and tributaries of western Nebraska during the breeding season. Western Nebraska is inside a notch of their migratory path so finding them in western Nebraska is not uncommon but seeing a breeding pair is rare. As rare as seeing a wild avocet is, it’s still worth the trip if you’re a wildlife photographer or birder. The best time to arrive in western Nebraska in search of American avocets is in mid-April. The video of the Avocets (click the above image) was made on April 30, 2021.

See the ( American avocet range map )

Eastern kingbird (Tyrannus tyrannus)

Spring is a time of the year that I particularly enjoy, especially in the Rocky Mountains and in western Nebraska. Trees beginning to bud, grasses turning green, and the return of one of my favorite birds to the area makes me want to jump out of my skin, grab a camera, and head toward the woods.

Early May in western Nebraska signals a change in weather. It’s also when you’ll hear the rambunctious calls of many different species of birds as the temperatures begin to warm and the Western Flyway begins to explode with feathered life.

The tell-tale sign that it’s officially Spring, despite how chilly it may be outside, is the return of the high-pitched and distinctly unique song of the eastern kingbird, which sounds very much like a scissor-tailed flycatcher (Tyrannus forficatus), just not as aggressive in tone.

The eastern kingbird can be found along creek banks resting on overhanging tree limbs, barbed wire fences, rails, top posts, dead tree limbs, and anything that can be used as a perch to help them spot insects more efficiently.

Eastern kingbirds are tolerant of human presence, but because they’re constantly engaging and re-engaging in aerial dogfights with flying insects, they’re difficult to photograph. To make a successful photograph, you must watch them in action first, observing where they land and perch. Make your way to the area being aware of your background because I can guarantee it will change the moment they take flight. If they’re near a body of water, they tend to return to the same perch where they’ll take a short break and start looking for their next victim (see image above).

Use a long lens to get close to the eastern kingbird. A Nikon 800mm f/5.6E AF-S will do the trick nicely and isolate the bird from the background in bokeh. The faster the lens, the better the results. Using wide-field action cameras are out of the question unless you can predict where and for how long a bird will be in one spot. Personally, clairvoyance is not in my repertoire, so my long glass has always been the best option.

Burrowing owl (Athene cunicularia)

Small in size and big in heart, the Burrowing owl only stands about six inches tall and is one of the smallest of owl species, the smallest being the Elf Owl which is slightly larger than a soda can and which makes its home in the southwest of North America.

Each Spring, the Burrowing owl can be found inside the ranchlands of western Nebraska, predominantly near or inside, Black-tailed prairie dog colonies. The owls utilize abandoned burrows built by prairie dogs. Migrating thousands of miles from Central and South America can put one in a bad mood. In some cases, the owl will evict the prairie dog from their burrow in force if the owl is determined to occupy a specific location in the colony.

Unlike other species of owls, the Burrowing owl does most of its hunting in the early morning and mid to late evening avoiding the heat of the day by remaining unseen underground where the burrows are cooler thanks to the ingenuity of the Black-tailed prairie dog who, through thousands of years of evolution, has learned to construct burrows with built-in air-conditioning.

Burrowing owls found in western Nebraska are the western species (A. c. hypugaea). Most commonly found from the Rocky Mountain Arsenal National Wildlife Refuge to southern Wyoming and western Nebraska. In several counties in Colorado and western Nebraska, their population is threatened due to pesticides, poisoning of Black-tailed prairie dogs, and habitat loss.

Finding Burrowing owls in western Nebraska is relatively easy. You need to know where to look and when. The birds begin to arrive in western Nebraska in late May, where they locate and establish a burrow. Shortly after, they start building their nest from various items found around the den, such as cow dung, small sticks, twigs, and grasses; during this time, you can see them in prairie dog towns resting on anything that rises from the prairie like rocks, boulders, dead trees, or fence posts. They’ll spend the next four months rearing their young, male and female, working together to feed them.

By the end of August, the birds have begun to travel south towards Texas, Mexico, and Central America, where they’ll spend the winter months until the following Spring.

You’ll need a set of binoculars to see them at a distance as they’re small and blend into the background easily. They’re even harder to see if they’re on the ground as their camouflage renders them virtually invisible when next to tall grass. They’re easiest to see when sitting at the mouth of their burrows, which is typically a vegetation-free raised mound due to the constant reshaping of the burrow entrance from disregarded contents of the burrow.

Burrowing owls tolerate human activity reasonably well. The key to photographing them is to find them and develop a plan of action in approaching them. In the photograph of the burrowing owl chicks (above), I spent the better half of the morning in an open prairie dog colony on my hands and knees, staying close to the ground, my camera tightly mounted on a tripod as I moved foot by foot closer to the mouth of the burrow. It took over an hour to travel under 100 yards, and I was still more than 30 yards from them when that image was made as I didn’t want to upset the birds.

Use a long lens but don’t count on the lens to do all the work for you. You must get close to your subject, no matter the subject, to capture a memorable image. Especially when photographing the burrowing owl.

Red-winged blackbird (Agelaius phoeniceus)

The Red-winged blackbird begins to arrive in western Nebraska from late March to middle April after migrating back to Nebraska from the southern United States and Central America. Each year the birds ring in the sounds of spring from the tops of cattails growing along the banks of sand ponds, creeks, slews, river branches, and tributaries where foliage is dense and abundant.

The Red-winged blackbird has one of North American bird species’ most highly detailed nests. The females weave the nest with such detail that some nests remain in working condition, with no maintenance, for years after being built.

Male Red-winged Blackbirds are show-offs doing anything and everything they can to get noticed by a female. Sitting on the tops of cattails, branches, and bushes rising from the tall grass of western Nebraska, they belt out their conk-la-ree! song all day long.

The females stay in the scrub near or on the ground as they hunt through vegetation for food and quietly, methodically weave their remarkable nests.

You’ll unlikely see a Red-winged blackbird in the winter months in western Nebraska. The birds typically begin to leave western Nebraska in late September when they travel south in huge flocks. A single flock can contain more than a million birds.

Photographing the Red-winged blackbird is easy. You need a quality long lens like a Nikon AF-S Nikkor 200 mm-500 mm F/5.6 ED VR and your choice of camera. A blind is helpful if you want detailed close-ups. A blind also keeps the animals from panicking due to your presence. I recommend using a blind during all photography excursions for that simple reason.

American white pelican (Pelecanus erythrorhynchos)

Pelicans were never on my list of birds to see overflying western Nebraska, northern Colorado, or eastern Wyoming, yet they were high above me in late March of 2019. Standing in disbelief, watching them soar into the distance was awe-inspiring. When thinking of pelicans, you immediately think of oceans, the Gulf of Mexico, the Keys of Florida, and southern California, but not western Nebraska or the Front Range of the Rocky Mountains unless you live here. Then it becomes familiar.

During their yearly migration, the American white pelican stops over for about two months in western Nebraska’s western flyway, taking advantage of the many lakes, ponds, and rivers that cross and dot the area.

They arrive in large flocks of upwards of two hundred or more birds and settle in, or near, the Lake Minatare area, where they rest from their long journey flying north to breeding grounds as far away as northern Canada.

A suitable blind is almost certainly required to document pelicans on the open prairie and scrub of the northern plains. Pelicans do not tolerate the presence of people at a close distance. And since it’s never the intention of a wildlife photographer to disturb wildlife in any way, a blind is the only suitable method to make close-up images of these amazing birds.

You don’t need an expensive blind to get great results. Sometimes a camouflaged sheet hung between two trees will do the trick. Other times a professional blind is required. I recommend using professional gear whenever you can, especially while documenting the American white pelican.

Double-crested cormorant (Nannopterum auritum)

Let’s face it, double-crested cormorants are just cool to look at and photograph. A genetic throwback to the age of dinosaurs if there ever was one. Of course, that’s not true, but in a way, it is true given all birds evolved from late dinosaurs, so it’s fitting that these amazing birds should look like them, at least a little.

Living on the Front Range of the Rocky Mountains, you come to expect the unexpected, but, nothing could have surprised me more when on my first visit to western Nebraska as a tourist, lost and stumbling my way around the area, I came upon two double-crested cormorants resting on a large log in the middle of the North Platte River in Scotts Bluff County.

On Lake Watson, Laporte, CO, seeing double-crested cormorants is frequent. They hang out with other shorebirds and bask in the sunlight while drying their feathers. Double-crested cormorants’ feathers are not water-proof, so they must dry them by holding them outward after fishing in order to take flight, which is why they prefer to visit larger lakes, far from shore, to prevent predators from taking advantage of their incapacitation. Seeing them in western Nebraska was a bit of a shock for me. Then again, this was my first visit to western Nebraska, and as I later learned, west Nebraska is the perfect playground for anyone with a camera who loves photographing birds.

Because Double-crested cormorants enjoy the safety of larger bodies of water, isolated from the shoreline while drying their feathers, you’ll need a long lens, and a set of keen eyes, to make a successful image of these beautiful birds.

Wild double-crested cormorants don’t tolerate the company of humans, ever. Therefore, I recommend a long, fast lens of your choice. I prefer to shoot with my Nikon F5 (film – I’m old school) coupled with an 800mm f/5.6E AF-S with Kodak Porta 400 pushed one stop but I also used a D850 and an AF-S NIKKOR 200-500mm f/5.6E, ED VR lens. The focal length is the critical part, not the brand. Every camera is the same thing, does the same thing, and in some cases, is manufactured by the same company. The selection of your lenses and cameras should reflect ergonomics and personal preference: not prestige.

Whatever camera body you select to shoot wildlife, ensure its shutter speed reaches above 1600. You’ll need that extra shutter speed to capture moving targets like birds, especially the double-crested cormorant. And to be honest, a 1600 shutter speed isn’t as fast as you would probably need to freeze the motion of wings in flight.

Double-crested cormorants are easy to find and harder to get close to. Once threatened by the use of DDT, the numbers of these birds have increased markedly in recent years, making their presence along river banks, lakes, and ponds a common sight.

Adolescents and juveniles enjoy hanging out in nesting trees. I’ve never seen a nesting tree that didn’t have at least two young birds resting on branches. Utilizing a professional blind will get you closer, but you must use extreme stealth if your efforts are to be successful.

Start your excursion by researching the area in which you’ll be stalking. Use binoculars to view the birds and learn their habits before attempting to move a blind into the area. Double-crested cormorants don’t tolerate abrupt change. They’ll leave the area if frequently disturbed.

Combining the majesty and beauty of the double-crested cormorant with the western landscapes of western Nebraska is an adventure of a lifetime that’s sure to render astonishing results.

Wood duck (Aix sponsa)

The Wood duck (Aix sponsa) is one of the most photographed birds in North America due to its stunning beauty and colors. Unique among North American waterfowl, wood ducks’ migrate into a small area of western Nebraska during the breeding season, which happens to be the only time you can see them, if you can see them, in western Nebraska and eastern Wyoming.

Wood ducks’ breeding habitat includes wooded swamps, shallow lakes, marshes, ponds, and creeks in the eastern United States, the west coast of the United States, some adjacent parts of southern Canada, and the west coast of Mexico.

Only a tiny portion of western Nebraska sees their yearly return, so finding one, seeing one, in western Nebraska is a real treat.

In western Nebraska, the wood duck nest in cavities in trees close to water. I’ve seen Wood ducks nest up to a mile away from water in eastern Wyoming near Fort Laramie.

Unlike most ducks, the wood duck has sharp claws for tree perching and can produce two broods in southern regions in a single season. It’s the only North American duck that can do so

If you want to get close to the wood duck, you’d better come prepared because it has zero tolerance for the presence of anything it’s unfamiliar with, including other ducks and waterfowl. I recommend using a professional birding blind. Be ready to sit for long durations without being able to move or make a single sound.

Bald eagle (Haliaeetus leucocephalus)

Hoping to see bald eagles on the shores of the Pacific Ocean is a realistic expectation, but while driving through the rugged country of western Nebraska, the last thing on your mind, or you expect to see, is a bald eagle.

Like many other people, I didn’t consider the bald eagle on North America’s high plains. Still, western Nebraska is unique in that it’s close to southeastern Wyoming and 100 miles east of northern Colorado’s Front Range, where bald eagles are permeant residents year-round.

These eagles make short migrations into western Nebraska each year in search of available food during the winter months when ice forms on lakes and ponds, but where some water remains liquid. Here, they catch fish, nest, and rear their young.

Convocations of bald eagles can be seen in tall cottonwood trees along the banks of the North Platte River from North Platte, NE to Torrington, WY, and everywhere in between beginning in November, which is when the Canda geese begin to arrive in western Nebraska in mass. On the ice of large lakes, the eagles search for wounded, old, or sick Canada geese, which they take with astonishing frequency. The eagles will remain in the area until April, sometimes into May. Seeing a bald eagle in the spring isn’t uncommon, but they are often mistaken for golden eagles when they’re first-year bald eagles whose coloration hasn’t changed.

Learn how to tell the difference between a bald and a golden eagle

Each year birders and photographers take expeditions to other parts of the world to participate in capturing wild bald eagles at workshops and on wildlife adventure tours. Great Alaska Adventures is one such company providing tours with an excellent reputation. I’m biased because the owners of the company are dear friends. Not to take away from their business, I want to point out that you don’t have to travel to the other side of the planet to find bald eagles in the wild. They’re right here in western Nebraska and are easy enough to see if you know where and when to look.

The first place to look for bald eagles in western Nebraska is near the North Platte River, especially near bends in the river where the water widens the banks and the depth of the water is about 5 feet or less, deep. It’s here that fish prefer to swim. Unfortunately for the fish, catching them for the eagles is easy.

The rule for looking for eagles is simple. Find the tallest tree on the river banks and sit down and watch. Like humans preferring a specific chair, brand, or product based on personal taste and comfort, eagles have particular trees that they prefer to sit in or hang out around. Once you discover these locations, you can bet you’ll see the birds with repeated frequency.

Bald eagles have zero tolerance for humans at close range. You’ll need a blind if you plan on staying for a while because once a bald eagle sees you, you’ll have its complete attention for about five minutes, probably much less until it makes a hasty retreat to another part of the river.

Lake Minatare is another location where bald eagles are in mass in late winter and early spring. The lake is closed to all public access from October 15 to January 15 annually due to the location being a bald eagle, and other birds, habitat for breeding.

As the lake ice begins to thaw in the spring, eagles dot the ice from one side of the lake to the other. I’ve counted as many as nineteen birds standing on the ice at one time. Typically they’re standing around the corpse of their dinner as an unfortunate Canada goose found its demise on the ice.

Swainson’s Hawk (Buteo swainsoni)

The Swainson’s hawk is the second-longest migrant of any North American raptor, the first being the arctic nesting Peregrine falcon.

Each year Swainson’s Hawks migrate over 7,000 miles from their winter nesting grounds in Central and South America north to lands stretching from Texas to Alberta, Canada, with each migration sometimes lasting more than two months. In that two months, the hawks find their way back to western Nebraska, where they take advantage of the Acrididae grasshopper population as one of their primary foods.

Seeing a Swainson’s hawk on the prairie of the Northern Plains of America isn’t rare. They’re here but are often misidentified as a red-tailed or cooper’s hawk. Finding one to make a photograph of is almost impossible. Using your vehicle as a blind is the best option. Driving around until you find one renders the best results unless you know the nest’s location. if you see the site of a nest, keep your distance and use a long lens and professional blind.

The trip to the panhandle of Nebraska to capture wildlife images is a challenge but not as big a challenge as making the trip to another part of the world for the same wildlife you can find here. While visiting the western Nebraska area, you’ll benefit from seeing and experiencing the old west. The history found here has been documented in thousands of books and publications. With a guide or some advice from a resident, you can experience that history while taking in the abundant wildlife throughout the year.

The panhandle region of Nebraska is unique to the world. Its climate, buttes, canyons, valleys, and natural resources are the very thing that makes up the west. It’s the Rocky Mountains’ beginning and the Great Plains’ end. It’s an experience no one forgets, and everyone who’s visited here can hardly wait to return to it.

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| REFERENCES

The information in this article has been compiled from the following:

NatureServe in collaboration with Robert Ridgely, James Zook, The Nature Conservancy-Migratory Bird Program, Conservation International-CABS, World Wildlife Fund-US, and Environment Canada – WILDSPACE.

Personal experiences and observations of Getty Images® Photographer Hawk Buckman.