Why?

My last post did not explain why retirement began with a trip to walk central Nebraska prairies.

The simple answer is to experience plains and prairies. Prairies and plains represent nature in Nebraska and I wanted to determine whether those plains and prairies can replace the allure mountains, forests and water have for me. (Nebraska does have a forest, and a unique one at that, but that is for another for another post.)

As I hope my “Sedges have Edges” post revealed, I very much enjoyed walking the prairies and found beauty and contentment in them.

My enjoyment of plains and prairies has continued and is rapidly leading me to conclude Nebraska offers much natural beauty, even if not in the form of mountains, forests and water. This morning, while Sharleen and Ryan did their annual day trip to Kansas City, seven others and I participated in a Prairie Bird Walk sponsored by the Spring Creek Prairie Audubon Center near Denton. The walk lasted about two hours. Overcast conditions protected us from a July sun that took the temperature to near 100 this afternoon with a heat index of more than 110 degrees. The walk left me with several new birds spotted and an opportunity to see another beautiful prairie with rolling hills, ravines, wetlands, tall grass and wildflowers.

I identified twenty species of birds on the walk. Thirteen of them for the first time. The seven “repeats” were a Great Blue Heron, Baltimore Oriole, Redbird, Red-winged Blackbird (male and female), Eastern Kingbird, Dickcissel (male and female) and Western Meadowlark. I can now add these to my list: Barn Swallow, Green Heron, Cowbird (male and female), Orchard Oriole, Goldfinch, Catbird, Brown Thrasher, Grasshopper Sparrow, Redwing (female), Common Yellow Throat, Downey Woodpecker (female), Willow Flycatcher and Red-headed Woodpecker (two next to each other on a branch).

Of course, I have a long way to go in terms of bird identification. (One of the participants on our walk reported she is well on her way to identifying at least 125 bird species in each of Nebraska’s 93 counties! She and I obviously share a compulsive personality.) But today was a great start. Perhaps it was a reward for purchasing and setting up a tube feeder for our backyard birds yesterday.