Nebraskaland

MayNebraskaland

NEBRASKAland Magazine is dedicated to outstanding photography and informative writing with an engaging mix of articles and photos highlighting Nebraska’s outdoor activities, parklands, wildlife, history and people.

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48 NEBRASKAland • MAY 2017 O n a remote country road in western Nebraska, a young lady bolts from an abruptly-stopped SUV and sprints toward a flock of wild turkeys. Unaccustomed to the threat of women in gym shorts, the baffled turkeys run halfheartedly at first, but as the distance closes they fly. Tall weeds impede their noisy launch and the last one airborne is nearly nabbed. "That's the closest I've ever come," the blond girl says later. "They were young." University of Nebraska-Lincoln senior Kate Durst never pictured her college experience this way. College is lectures and labs, assignments and homework. Eyes glued to phone screens, hordes of students winding antlike between campus buildings among unwary squirrels along manicured pathways. But at the Cedar Point Biological Station in Keith County, phones don't work, pathways are dirt, and turkey carcasses are course material. Squirrels are watchful here – for they may become course material, too. Like many others who have enrolled at Cedar Point this season, Durst is here to broaden her knowledge of Nebraska's natural world and to improve her scientific skillset. She chose Cedar Point's Field Parasitology course, where she has become the class specialist in turkey parasites. She hopes to eventually land a career in tropical disease control and prevention. "I'm getting hands-on experience here that other UNL students don't get," she said. "Cedar Point integrates a truly academic setting with the area's unique nature, and that pushes me to explore." Set within cedar trees among picturesque rolling hills southeast of Lake McConaughy's spillway, Cedar Point lies at the juncture of Nebraska's tall grass and short grass prairies along the southern region of the Sandhills and the northern edge of the Platte River Valley. This geographical nexus provides uniquely diverse flora and fauna for the University of Nebraska field courses offered here, Learning at Cedar Point A Unique Biological Station Story and photos by Mark Harris Grasshoppers make up the bulk of a greater prairie-chicken's diet in late summer. The bird that ate these will be examined for parasites in Cedar Point Biological Station's lab.

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