Fig. 1Rainbow over prairie grass at Neal Smith National Wildlife Refuge, Iowa
Photo: U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Headquarters · Public domain
Landform
Restored tallgrass and oak savanna on the Iowa drift plain. Refuge bison keep the grass working.
Field note
Neal Smith is prairie grown back from farmland, not a visitor-center postcard. After a storm a rainbow can stand on the copper grass. Dew holds on the blades at first light. Sparky, a refuge bison, is a real animal of this ground — not a stock herd from somewhere else. Des Moines is twenty miles west.
