The Tallgrass Prairie Preserve is teeming with life in the summer. It may not seem so to visitors who drive the long, gravel roads that snake through the hills of the circuitous, and alarmingly endless, Bison Loop or any other route. The bison tend to find a shady spot well away from the roads and disappear on hot days. One hill looks very much like the next, and the lines of the power grid cut across the prairie without the slightest hint at becoming anything like a landmark. Your GPS will not give you a North. And it is more difficult than you might imagine plotting any movement of the sun for direction in such a landscape. You really have no choice but to give yourself up to the prairie, abandoning all thoughts of longitude and latitude. What does that matter?
Isn't that really the point of coming to a place like the Tallgrass Prairie Preserve in the first place? The really delightful conundrum of the space to me is that if you do give yourself up to the prairie and begin to look around, you begin to hear the sounds, feel the wind, see the movement of the place. You realize that it is anything but empty. Everywhere you look, the ecosystem in the summer is making the most of the moment.
As a photographer, it's like being in a candy store. Exotic plants and flowers, creatures you can't find anywhere else, everything existing in symbiotic peace. And the place is just spare enough to be challenging. I never fail to completely loose myself for hours.
After I had finally packed up all my photography gear and started back, the elusive herd of bison came over one of the hills and crossed right in front of me. About a hundred head of bison moved slowly from one side of the prairie to the other. Very young calves moved together with their mothers, staying close to her, so that it was obvious to whom they belonged. Older bulls lay in the tall grass with just their horns showing as the herd moved in their direction. I watched without any real effort at getting the shot.
On my way out of the Preserve, I noticed a turtle slowly making his (her) way across the gravel road. I jumped out of my truck and grabbed my camera. The turtle retreated into his shell and it was only after dousing him with my drinking water to cool him off and waiting patiently that he felt safe enough to emerge. Wow, what a beauty.
It was late afternoon when I rolled out of the Tallgrass Prairie. It was also the night of the new moon, and I debated whether I should wait and make some star-trail photography. I thought about how when the sun sets it is easy to find your direction. The heat departs, the colors change, the moon rises, and the night sounds begin. A syncopated cacophony of bug sounds plays background to the eerie, far off call of coyotes. But that is another experience altogether. I left feeling, as always, thankful that we still have these vestiges of wild nature.
