Nebraska Bird Watching
Even nonbirds know about the spring and fall spectacle of sandhill crane migration along the Platte River. It should be on every birder’s bucket list, especially when combined with a trip to see greater prairie chickens and sharp-tailed grouse displaying on their leks. The Cornhusker State is heavily agricultural, but its natural state is prairie, home to many increasingly rare grassland birds. The 100th meridian bisects Nebraska, so both eastern and western birds are on the state’s checklist. The more arid Great Plains of western Nebraska, with its buttes, escarpments and rangeland, give way to the rolling dunes of the central sandhills, and even farther east, to the croplands of the central lowlands.
