For thousands of years sandhill cranes have flocked to the Platte River Valley to replenish their energy reserves before they head north to their breeding grounds in the Arctic. The last two years I have been fortunate enough to regularly observe and photograph these prehistoric birds during their time in Nebraska. However photographing cranes comes […]

We drive down a long gravel road parting a sea of grass. I look up and see the moon – a fingernail crescent. We park the truck in front of an old cottonwood tree and cut the lights. To the west, the night sky is still dark and star-filled; to the east dawn is a […]

Photography has been a hobby of mine for several years. During that time, some of my favorite subjects to photograph have been wildlife. When I first started photographing wildlife, I would often go out to prairies and wetlands and hope that I would stumble across something interesting to photograph. I have learned that this is […]

While meeting with the Platte Basin Timelapse (PBT) team for the first time last fall, I realized the magnitude of their efforts to catalog the movement of water, temporal change in various habitats, and diverse organisms that reside in the Platte River Basin. Little did I know that this meeting would significantly affect my future […]

Sarah Sortum grew up near Taylor, Nebraska, on her family’s cattle ranch in the Sandhills, the descendant of homesteaders. Her family continues to operate on the same property, running their own cattle, custom grazing operations for others, and Calamus Outfitters, a nature-based tourism operation.

On a hot humid morning in late June, I got out of the truck dressed in a faded white cotton t-shirt, baggie shorts, and teva sandals, with a small backpack slung over my shoulder. I looked like I was headed out for a day at the beach. And I was. Well, sort of. In a […]