Crescent Lake National Wildlife Refuge

Today Noelle, Sierra and I headed into the heart of the Nebraska Sandhills for the first time. We visited Crescent Lake National Wildlife Refuge and its associated natural lakes which is located north of the town of Oshkosh, Nebraska. 

It was a pretty long drive to the wildlife refuge, especially once we headed north out of Oshkosh. The headed north is a mix of soft sand sections, old asphalt and gravel. We arrived in the refuge to cool temperatures and immediately we started to see lots of wildlife. We hiked a short trail to a view of Gimlet Lake 

and then ate lunch at the picnic area near the refuge headquarters. At the picnic area we saw orioles and a yellow mud turtle in the parking lot.

After lunch we continued our drive north through the refuge. We saw lots more birds, 

including white faced ibis. 

and a small common snapping turtle right in the road.

We drove to the north boundary of the refuge and saw the rarest plant in Nebraska: blowout penstemon.

Then we turned around and headed back to Island Lake where we put the canoe in the water for a short paddle. 

On the water we saw lots of ducks, gulls and mergansers. We paddled for about an hour and put the canoe back on the car for the drive home.

Besides the blowout penstemon, we saw lots of spiderwort and prickly poppy in bloom.