30 Nebraskaland • December 2022
lowouts in the Nebraska Sandhills need a better public
relations agent. They're unpopular with ranchers,
who tend to focus on the reasonable fact that bare
sand contains very little cattle food. Among the other
residents of the Sandhills prairie, though, that negative
opinion is in the minority. Lots of smaller animals love them.
Most of those animals use blowouts as bonus habitat.
They're a nice place to visit, even if they wouldn't necessarily
want to live there. Blowouts can be a great place to bask in
the warmth of the sun, for example. Depending upon the
topographic location of blowouts, some can host temporary
pools of water after rains. Those can be very popular with
animals that are either thirsty or seeking a quick bath.
Looking for a pleasant breeze on a warm day? Blowouts
were made for wind. For that matter, they were made by wind,
but it comes to the same thing. There is almost always at least
a little breeze blowing across the bare sand, unobstructed by
vegetation. At other times, of course, there's so much wind
it reshapes the topography of the sand, fi lling in the tracks
of recent visitors and creating attractive ripples across the
surface of the blowout. It can be a little more challenging to
abide in a blowout during that kind of wind, but that's when
a little burrowing or a retreat to the sheltered edges can be a
nice option.
Blowout penstemon is perhaps the best-known inhabitant of Sandhills blowouts, but the blowouts are also terrifi c habitat
for many animals.
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