Near scattered farmhouses we may see logger-head shrikes; by one water tank we usually find a few killdeer. These and such birds as the long-billed curlew, upland sandpipers, and sharp-tailed grouse break the near monotony of such prairie birds as western meadowlarks (Nebraska’s state bird), lark buntings, horned larks, and chestnut-collared longspurs. Lark buntings line the utility wires, taking off to sing their territorial songs, and descending with butterfly-like motions.
Hawks are here—red-tails, Swainson’s, ferruginous, marsh, and the little American kestrel—but in small numbers. We search long rows of fence posts for a burrowing owl and occasionally see one. Great-horned owls frequent tall cottonwood trees around the Agate ranch buildings. This is also the country of turkey vultures, golden eagles, and prairie falcons, but we have not been lucky enough to see them yet.
Mammals are more elusive. Cattle pasture conspicuously on land formerly claimed by the buffalo (bison). We see pronghorns each year. A lone coyote is the only other relatively large mammal we have logged. Check a good mammal book and you will appreciate what lives here largely invisible to the untrained eye: shrews, moles, bats, cottontails and two kinds of jackrabbits, pocket gophers, prairie dogs, kangaroo rats, voles, several kinds of mice, two kinds of ground squirrel, muskrats, beaver, raccoons, minks, badgers, longtailed weasels, two kinds of skunks, occasional porcupines and bobcats, white-tailed deer, and mule deer. Consider yourself lucky if you see the swift fox, mountain lion, and the rare black-footed ferret.
Life abounds here in other forms less noticeable to eyes trained on the Breeding Bird Survey: various species of amphibians, reptiles, fish, and the numerous insects associated with grasslands. We hear perhaps too much about rattlesnakes—western Nebraska has only the prairie rattler, whose numbers are now much reduced. Other snakes include western hognosed, blue racer, bullsnake, and the plains, wandering, and red-sided garter snakes.
Many museums throughout the world have displays of fossils from the Agate Fossil Beds. Very few of them actually collected their own material. Museum curators are dedicated “horse traders” and fossil-swapping is part of the business. When museums such as the Carnegie Museum of Pittsburgh or the American Museum of Natural History in New York make collections like the ones made at Agate earlier in this century, they usually have some trading stock left over after completing their study collections and exhibits. They then can trade an extra _Menoceras_ slab, for example, for a dinosaur skeleton from some faraway corner of the Earth.
