Outdoorsmen Adventures.com

MULLEN, Neb. — There was no hint of a sunrise on the eastern horizon. Larry Porter, Lincoln, Neb., Gary Howey, Hartington, Neb., Mitch Glidden, owner of the Sandhills Motel in Mullen, and I boarded the yellow school bus parked at the top of a rise in the midst of a Sand Hills pasture.

In the daylight, it would be an incongruous and out-of-place sight. But now, in the dark we were thankful that the bus provided protection from a harsh and cold southwest wind.

The school bus, you see, was a blind from which we intended to watch and photograph annual prairie grouse courtship rituals.

This was a sharptail stomping ground, more properly called a “lek” by those who study such things.

On this spot, a dozen male sharptails will gather each morning from February to May. Here they will dance, pose, posture and stamp in an effort to attract a female.

As we sat there visiting, I looked out the window into the darkness and thought I could see scurrying figures in the prairie grasses.

“They’ll come in as much as an hour before sunrise,” Mitch said.

“Well, they are here now,” I answered as I could make out at least six of them running around.

As dawn arrived we could make out at least a dozen birds. Each had his own territory and as another bird would approach, their peculiar ritual would begin.

With heads held low to the ground and purple neck sacks enlarged they would run at each other and then turn at the last minute. Frequently just as you thought they were about to do battle, both would simply deflate, squat on the ground and stare at each other.

It was a terrible morning for photography. A heavy overcast kept light conditions so low that even with my ASA set at 1600 and the camera on a tripod, the exposures were borderline most of the morning.

The grouse put on a good show, but the weather was holding them back, too.

No females appeared and by 8 a.m. they all took to the air as if on cue and flew away.

That morning’s ritual had ended.

The afternoon and evening before, Gary, Mitch and I had boarded another bus on another area on a prairie chicken lek.

Here more than two dozen male chickens danced and waited, each on their own piece of real estate.

We had limited periods of sunshine, which helped the photography, but a vicious wind made it difficult to hear the “booming” sound which prairie chickens make on the lek.

But in spite of the weather the birds put on a good show.

Mitch and his wife Patty have been providing chicken and sharptail viewing for eight years.

They have hosted visitors from all across the United States as well as the UK. A British Broadcasting Company filmed a documentary from Mitch’s blinds.

Their most famous visitor was Primatologist Jane Goodall who visited with her sister and an assistant.

Already this year he has had visitors from Washington state, Oregon and Florida.

Word spreads via his website: www.sandhillsmotel.com and from brochures which he distributes at sports shows and other venues each year.

Mich and Patty have had the motel since 1993. Shortly after buying it, they began to offer canoe rentals on the Dismal and Middle Loup Rivers.

The Middle Loup runs just north of town and is a great river for a family trip. He recently began offering floats aboard a 7- to 9-foot stock tanks. It is perfect for people who prefer to stay dry, small children or the elderly. Up to eight adults can safely ride a tank.

The Dismal River is billed as a high adventure canoe trip and only experienced river runners should attempt it.

As we left the sharptail lek, we dropped down into the Lower Loup valley and saw a big tom turkey strutting with two hens. We photographed them.

Another hundred yards down the sand track and we came across two big strutting gobblers with seven or eight hens.

As we photographed them I look down and across the river into an opening in the timbered banks. There another group of toms and hens were strutting.

We made plenty of photographs.

Prairie chickens and sharptails were the focus of this trip, but all kinds of wildlife abounds in this area of the Sand Hills.

It’s only about six hours out from Sioux City, and I will do some more exploring in this area.

Sitting in a stock tank drifting down the Middle Loup River sounds pretty good to me right now.