ABOUT ME

Stephen Jones, Naturalist and Photographer

I'm author of Nourishing Waters, Comforting Sky (Bison Books, March 2022) and The Last Prairie, a Sandhills Journal. I'm co-author of the Peterson Field Guide to the North American Prairie, The Shortgrass Prairie, and Butterflies of the Colorado Front Range. My nature sounds CD, "Sandhills Serenade," is available at the Audubon Nebraska Rowe Sanctuary in Gibbon and the Most Unlikely Place in Lewellen. http://www.themostunlikelyplace.com/

Most of these photos were taken during 500 days and nights camping out in relatively remote areas of the Nebraska Sandhills.

PORTFOLIO

Nebraska Sandhills

​Covering 20,000 square miles, the Nebraska Sandhills (known to geologists, geographers, and many Native American cultures as the Sand Hills) comprise the largest expanse of grass-stabilized dunes in North America. The dunes and interdunal valleys support a mosaic of native mixed-grass and tallgrass prairie--the largest remnant of the sea of grass that once extended from the Mississippi River to the Rocky Mountains. Thousands of shallow lakes and ponds support aggregations of native wildlife. While mostly under private ownership, significant portions of this luxuriant landscape grow more natural as time goes on.

Top row: Crescent Lake, greater prairie-chicken, greater sandhill cranes
Middle row: Burrowing owl, trumpeter swan family, bronze copper
Bottom row: Fort Falls, cattle grazing at Black Lake, pronghorns above Crescent Lake

Scroll down for 3-minute slideshows on Destinations, Birds, Grasses, Butterflies, Dragonflies, Other Wildlife, and Wildflowers.

Destinations (22)

Birds (28)

Grasses (18)

Butterflies (22)

Damsel and Dragonflies (18)

Other Insects and Spiders (20)

Other Wildlife (18)

Wildflowers (36)