Waving Big Bluestem

Konza Prairie, Flint Hills region of Kansas

The Konza Prairie is a 8616 acre tallgrass prairie near Manhattan, Kansas. It is owned by The Nature Conservancy, and managed as a field research facility by Kansas State University. It is one of the very best examples of a large undisturbed tract of tallgrass prairie left in North America.

This picture was taken on a remote part of this preserve, and on the top of a very symmetrical, cone shaped hill. Once I arrived on the rocky summit, the sun was nearly setting. Just to the left of this picture I found a round fire pit made of stones, almost invisible amongst a group of sumac bushes. It seemed to be a perfect place for Native Americans to have come to pay homage of one sort or another.

The limestone slab in the foreground of this picture is surrounded by Big Bluestem grasses waving in the breeze and lit by the setting sun. Because of the low light in the shadows, I had to use a slow shutter speed of about 1/4 sec, and the amber colored grasses were blurred from their movement during the exposure. This gives a graphic but gentle reminder of the nearly constant wind on the prairie. The Konza Indians lived in this area prior to settlement, and Konza is roughly translated as “people of the south wind”.