A sandhill is a hill or mound made primarily of sand, often formed by wind blowing sand into piles over many years. You might see sandhills in deserts, along coastlines, or in sandy areas where wind constantly reshapes the landscape. Some sandhills stay in one place for centuries, while others slowly migrate as wind pushes sand up one side and down the other.

The term also refers to specific regions. The Nebraska Sandhills, for example, cover about a quarter of the state with grass-covered sand dunes that early settlers found nearly impossible to farm. These hills created a unique landscape where ranchers graze cattle on the native grasses that hold the sand in place.

The sandhill crane, a tall gray bird with a distinctive red patch on its head, gets its name from nesting in these sandy, hilly regions. These cranes are among the oldest bird species on Earth, with fossils dating back millions of years. Every spring, hundreds of thousands of sandhill cranes stop in Nebraska's Platte River Valley during their migration, creating one of nature's great spectacles as they rest in the same area their ancestors visited for millennia.