It’s all about water on the Great Plains, and never more so than in early spring, when the great rivers become highways for millions of northbound birds. The Missouri, the Platte, the Dismal, and the Loup were all on our itinerary last week, and repeated visits proved once again how truly Heraclitean these midwestern streams can be at this season: wintering Common Goldeneye one day are replaced by migrant Lesser Yellowlegs the next, and American Tree Sparrows slowly cede the thickets to arriving Field Sparrows.

We started our tour, right on time, with a walk at Wehrspann Lake, one of innumerable flood control reservoirs on the once-deadly Papio. The only thing threatening us, though, was a slightly chilly wind as we watched Eastern Phoebes chase through the grass and a fine mink shadowing a pair of Mallards along the lakeshore. The Eastern Meadowlarks singing from the tallgrass patches were noticeably darker and their vocalizations noticeably thinner than those of the Lilian’s Meadowlarks of southeast Arizona, with which they may or may not be conspecific. Hope sprang with the loud trill of a chorus frog–the only one we would  hear all week.

The next morning found us up and about in Fontenelle Forest, where a singing Hermit Thrush was taking over from a Barred Owl and Carolina Wrens dashed in and out of the dark underbrush. The floodplain forest was less birdy, though waterfowl diversity was gratifyingly high, with large numbers of Lesser Scaup and Blue-winged Teal on the water and Wood Ducks in the trees overhead; an odd sight was a Canada Goose on an apparent nest high atop a tall stump. A couple of Swamp Sparrows and two Rusty Blackbirds were sure signs of spring.

After lunch we set off for southern Sarpy County’s wetlands, with a quick stop at Haworth Park for a look across at the nesting Bald Eagle on the Iowa side (surprisingly, this was the only individual of the species we saw the entire week). Base Lake, nearly empty just a week before, this time was paved with waterfowl, including Hooded and Red-breasted Mergansers, newly arrived migrants. The ephemeral wetlands of the La Platte bottoms had more ducks, mostly Blue-winged Teal, and the first sandpipers of the tour: a Lesser Yellowlegs and several Wilson’s Snipe.

The same intricate patterns that make snipe so hard to see in the grass make them among the most beautiful of all shorebirds when they’re caught feeding–uncharacteristically–out in the open.

That evening we sought the snipe’s even more ludicrously snouted cousin, American Woodcock–and failed. Three birds were audible, just barely, above the wind, but sleet and snow in our eyes kept us from so much as glimpsing their displays overhead at what had always been my fail-safe site. That’s birding–and we would have another chance later in the week anyway.

It felt hard to turn our backs on the east: we just knew that birds were piling up to our south, waiting for a change in the weather. But the siren song of the central Platte Valley was too much to resist, and a couple of hours after we got up, we were admiring the thousands of Sandhill Cranes on the fields and checking through the waterfowl for Richardson’s Cackling and Ross’s Geese.

A walk at Crane Meadows took us to a thicket crawling with Harris’s Sparrows, and the first Field Sparrow of the spring joined them; there aren’t many places in the world where those two species can be watched in the same brush pile! Four American Pipits paused on a sandbar, while two noisy Greater Yellowlegs danced in the channel among the abundant Blue-winged Teal.

Our dinner in Grand Island came complete with a performance by the renowned comedy team Clueless and Surly, but we were too tired to care about anything but our anticipation of the next day’s birding. It started in the parking lot of our hotel, with Canada Geese and dramatic Common Grackles, and continued as we birded our way west along the Platte to Elm Creek and north into the Sandhills.

A stop at Ansley’s town lake threatened for a moment or two to become permanent, but a push and a shove later we were on our way to Mullen. We had just time to check in to our rooms and throw on an extra layer before heading out to the lek, the booming ground of Greater Prairie-Chickens.

This was the same lek we’d visited the week before, but what a difference those few days had made! There wasn’t a breath of wind, and the spirit was so much upon the birds that a couple of them walked right under our schoolbus blind.

We had about 60 dancing males on the lek, which is on hay at the edge of a cornfield; the moaning hoots and drumbeat foot-stompings were nearly constant.

It was one of the best shows I’d ever seen in more than three decades of chicken-watching, and even Mitch–who takes it personal when the birds don’t perform as he thinks they should–was happy with it.

It was another short night, but I don’t think any of us cared. And what a joy it was to wake up a few hours in and find the early morning actually warm. I couldn’t remember another occasion when I’d sat in a Sharp-tailed Grouse blind with no mittens on.

The gloves were off out on the lek, too.

There were as many as nine males displaying at a time, and when a hen ventured onto the floor, the dance became much less ritualized and much more physical; feathers literally flew a couple of times, and I blushed to imagine what the rivals must be saying to each other during the long stare-downs.

I don’t think I’d ever had a more exciting morning with this species, and it was all the better for the fact that everyone else in the group was experiencing it for the first time.

In fact, it was a perfect Sandhills experience all around, from the singing Western Meadowlarks to the lone pronghorn on a distant hillside. Best of all was a pair of Ferruginous Hawks perched together in a blowout; I can never see this species often enough, and it had been a couple of years since I’d seen it in Nebraska at all.

Breakfast was as welcome as it was substantial, just the thing to fortify us for the drive back east–already. No matter what Google Maps says, it’s a long drive, but we made good time and found little, unfortunately, to delay us as we checked some traditionally good crane spots along the way. We were back in Bellevue in time for supper and a second visit to the woodcocks of Lake Manawa.

They treated us better this time, three birds visible against the dusk, one of them maddeningly close as it buzzed from the ground. Soon it was too dark to pick them out overhead, and we hatched a plan: we’d leave the hotel with our bags the next morning and spend a few hours looking for the birds in daylight before heading to the airport.

It was a good plan and a remarkably beautiful morning, but we didn’t manage to find any long-nosed leaf-colored birds. We did lose a year’s growth when a Wild Turkey flushed at intimidatingly close range to land in the cottonwoods above our heads, and the sparrow tally was quite respectable, with a singing Field Sparrow and a couple of really breathtaking Red Fox Sparrows. A Tree Swallow was investigating nest boxes, and thirteen-lined ground squirrels were trilling their high, silvery calls. Prairie spring!

I stood in the Indian grass and soaked up the sun and the warmth, knowing that I wouldn’t find much waiting for me in Vancouver. And then it was off to the airport, dropping my friends at the terminal, returning the vehicle, checking in, and settling in to wait on my own flights home.

And starting the planning for next year.

The only thing better than birding is birding with friends, and I would have been hard pressed to come up with a more congenial set of companions. In five short and bird-filled days, we covered nearly a thousand miles, exploring many of the habitats that make Nebraska such a rewarding destination at any time of year.

We began in eastern Nebraska, with a brief visit to a bit of remnant tallgrass prairie that rang with the sweet, simple songs of newly returned Eastern Meadowlarks while a couple of Tree Swallows did their best to make it a spring. Our first full day’s birding took us to one of the state’s true natural jewels, the 1,600 acres of Fontenelle Forest.

Scarce this year after a light acorn crop, a Red-headed Woodpecker was a good find in the lowlands, where we also watched the first of the tour’s Eastern Bluebirds investigating a cavity. The bluff-top oak forest produced a pair of Carolina Wrens, skittish at first but soon giving patient observers spectacular up-close views.

After our first Runza lunch, we headed south on an increasingly cloudy afternoon to check sandpits, lakes, and marshes on the Missouri River floodplain. Reclusive Red Fox Sparrows eventually showed themselves well, and big, boisterous Harris’s Sparrows sang from the thickets. The afternoon’s biggest surprise was an immature Golden Eagle moving north; this is a rare bird in eastern Nebraska.

Supper at Bellevue’s best Mexican restaurant was followed by an evening at Lake Manawa, an ancient oxbow of the Missouri now on the Iowa side of the river, where three American Woodcock buzzed and twittered and chipped in the chilly dusk.

The next morning found us headed west and into what was at first better weather. The first of many thousands of Sandhill Cranes greeted us just east of Grand Island, and by carefully checking the fields south of the Platte River between that city and Kearney, we had good looks at Ross’s and Richardson’s Cackling Geese, large numbers of arriving Blue-winged Teal, and a Harlan’s Hawk.

A Turkey Vulture was a new bird for the tour, but the highlight of the day was standing on the banks of the Platte in the evening, watching and listening to the endless stream of Sandhill Cranes coming in to their river roost. A good meal in Kearney capped a day of very exciting birding.

We were up early the next morning to visit Fort Kearny. The weather had changed for the worse, and it was cold and windy as we stood watching the cranes in their thousands move off the river and into the fields. The Dark-eyed Junco flock, here as elsewhere heavily dominated by Slate-colored Juncos, also contained single Oregon and Cassiar Juncos. After another search through the cranes, we pointed the vans northwest to the Nebraska Sandhills.

These 20,000 square miles of grassy dunes are one of the most evocative landscapes in North America—and the site of one of the continent’s oddest features, the Nebraska National Forest, an entirely artificial woodland of conifers planted in the 1930s. Over the years, the area has been colonized by a number of surprising pioneers, and in spite of the wind and chill, we found Downy Woodpecker, White-breasted and Red-breasted Nuthatches, and a single Townsend’s Solitaire during our brief visit.

Another hour’s drive found us in Mullen, the largest (and the only) town in Hooker County.

With 491 souls, Mullen accounts for 60% of the county’s population, which exceeds the county’s square mileage by 72. We checked in to the neat, modern motel, then piled in to the shuttle bus for the ride out to our big yellow blind on the edge of the dancing grounds of the Greater Prairie-Chickens.

Dozens of birds were feeding on the edges of the lek when we arrived, and the dance began in earnest not long thereafter. The howling wind deprived us of most of the auditory portion of the display, but even so there is nothing like the sight of the shoebox-shaped males, extravagant ear tufts blowing in the breeze and bright orange neck pouches a-bulge.

Supper at Big Red’s was followed by the shortest night of the tour; our 5:15 morning departure was made only a little more humane by the fact that we had “gained” an hour by crossing into the Mountain time zone.

It was dark when we climbed into the schoolbus blind, but it wasn’t long before we heard the wild gobbling of Sharp-tailed Grouse just outside. There were nine males on the lek, their bright white undertails visible even before sunrise; happily, the wind was calm and the birds close, so this time we were able not just to watch their insane gyrations but also to hear the rattles of their central tail feathers and the drumming of their feet.

By 7:20 the birds had tired, and their watchers were ready for a hearty breakfast in Mullen. The drive back to town was interrupted by an enormous Wild Turkey, but not even he could keep us from our appointed pancakes and waffles and omelets.

The drive back to Bellevue and the Missouri River was uneventful, but by the time we stopped at Walnut Creek for another Eastern Meadowlark “fix,” there was definitely something in the air. And when we left supper a couple of hours later, it was on the ground and on the rooftops, too; we could only be grateful that this late-season snow had held off as long as it did.

The next morning found a good four inches piled on top of the vans, but not even that could deter us from a final visit to Fontenelle Forest, which was even more beautiful in the snow. Swamp and Red Fox Sparrows lurked along the stream. A visually “Eastern” Towhee giving only Spotted Towhee calls was a reminder that even on the eastern border of the state we were still on the edge of the Great Plains, and the songs of Eastern Phoebes and the rattling wingbeats of an American Woodcock flushed from the trail assured us that even in the snow it was still spring.

Thanks to all the participants for their great company and generous good nature—I can’t wait until next time!

Birds Seen or Heard

Snow Goose

Ross’s Goose

Cackling Goose

Canada Goose

Wood Duck

Gadwall

American Wigeon

Mallard

Blue-winged Teal

Northern Shoveler

Northern Pintail

Green-winged Teal

Canvasback

Redhead

Ring-necked Duck

Lesser Scaup

Bufflehead

Common Goldeneye

Ruddy Duck

Ring-necked Pheasant

Sharp-tailed Grouse

Greater Prairie-Chicken

Wild Turkey

Pied-billed Grebe

Eared Grebe

Double-crested Cormorant

Great Blue Heron

Turkey Vulture

Bald Eagle

Northern Harrier

Sharp-shinned Hawk

Cooper’s Hawk

Red-tailed Hawk

Rough-legged Hawk

Golden Eagle

American Kestrel

Merlin

American Coot

Sandhill Crane

Killdeer

Greater Yellowlegs

American Woodcock

Ring-billed Gull

Franklin’s Gull

Rock Pigeon

Eurasian Collared-Dove

Mourning Dove

Great Horned Owl

Belted Kingfisher

Red-headed Woodpecker

Red-bellied Woodpecker

Downy Woodpecker

Hairy Woodpecker

Northern Flicker

Eastern Phoebe

Blue Jay

Black-billed Magpie

American Crow

Horned Lark

Tree Swallow

Black-capped Chickadee

Red-breasted Nuthatch

White-breasted Nuthatch

Brown Creeper

Carolina Wren

Eastern Bluebird

Hermit Thrush

American Robin

European Starling

Cedar Waxwing

Eastern Towhee

Eastern x Spotted Towhee

American Tree Sparrow

Red Fox Sparrow

Song Sparrow

Swamp Sparrow

Harris’s Sparrow

White-crowned Sparrow

Dark-eyed Junco

Northern Cardinal

Red-winged Blackbird

Eastern Meadowlark

Western Meadowlark

Brewer’s Blackbird

Common Grackle

Brown-headed Cowbird

House Finch

American Goldfinch

House Sparrow

Mammals

Eastern Cottontail

Eastern Gray Squirrel

Eastern Fox Squirrel

Thirteen-lined Ground-Squirrel

White-tailed Deer

Mule Deer