photoblogging: Platte River Valley

Susan's sister Christy (a.k.a. remchick) is visiting us from North Carolina, and we spent most of today watching sandhill cranes and other wildlife in the Platte River Valley south of Grand Island. None of the crane pictures really turned out—our camera's zoom lens doesn't have much of a reach, and it's difficult to check the focus on a postage-stamp-sized image—but I thought I'd share a few others.

Without really meaning to, I shot a series of photos with a "home" theme. Seven hundred sixty-three people call Doniphan home...


...or over eight hundred, depending on which sign you believe.

This old cottonwood, I'm reasonably certain, is used as a nesting site by a pair of American kestrels.

Cliff swallows' mud nests under a Platte River bridge.

This Baltimore oriole nest is tightly-woven enough to have survived the winter more or less intact, but they'll build another this spring.

A pair of muskrat lodges.

Finally, a reminder of territorial conflict—the flip side of domesticity. This area was home for the Lakota before settlers like the Martin family showed up. I call this the "good shot" memorial.

The last few images are nothing to do with the home theme, just a few pictures that happened to turn out reasonably well. Top to bottom: lone redhead; geese on skim ice; still life with cattails.