Once a week since his retirement from community banking, Brockmeier would drive the roads of Frontier County, no more than about 10 to 15 miles from the village of Eustis, population 401, his eyes scanning the grassy horizon for wildlife.


Nature photographer Don Brockmeier, now 82, entered his plywood blind, mounted on a trailer, 45 minutes before sunrise, choosing a location where he saw evidence of prairie chickens: feathers and scats. This day, he chose his spot well. Thirty chickens arrive, 20 male and 10 female. Male chickens began their mating dance, called a lek, on the roof of his blind. Only a few males would “settle,” having fought off the others for the privilege.

Once a week since his retirement from community banking, Brockmeier would drive the roads of Frontier County, no more than about 10 to 15 miles from the village of Eustis, population 401, his eyes scanning the grassy horizon for wildlife. 

“There is nothing nicer than rolling down your window and listening to the meadowlark and the northern Bobwhite,” he said. “You’ll hear one call and the other one, and then another one answer.”

Nature calms him. “You’re not thinking about anything in the world or anything else other than nature created in the way it interacts. When somebody reads a good book and they can’t put it down, well, when I’m out doing nature photography, it’s kind of hard to stop.”

Brockmeier sees beauty at every level of nature, from prey to predators.

“Our world needs prairie chickens,” he said. “A hawk may eat a prairie chicken but also snakes and rodents. I kind of hate to see people just killing snakes just to be killing them. Those snakes, they eat lots of rodents. You take out one of those elements, and it’s a domino effect. And you won’t have the next layer up.”

One day, he spotted a coyote, one that didn’t run away the way most others would when he stopped for a photograph. “She was up on a hillside. She just kind of stood there and looked at me and then she kind of looked over her shoulder. Then I went down little ways. And there were two coyote pups that somebody ran over on the road.”

From his blind, Brockmeier knows when prairie chickens sense danger. They grow quiet. That was the signal when a coyote came by and a hawk. He remembers one coyote-chicken encounter in particular.

“I saw a coyote sneaking up, and the chickens saw him,” he said. “That got the hair up on the back of my neck because I knew something is about to happen.”

When Brockmeier wants to leave the road for a better location to conduct his nature photography, he’s often already gotten permission. He knows the farmers.

“I had a farmer call in and say, ‘We were cleaning things up and there’s a weasel,’ and you know, BAM, I went out and we got a picture,” he said. “Another time somebody called me and said, ‘Hey, there’s a coyote; I don’t know if you can get or near it.”

Brockmeier worked at Farmers State Bank for 38 years, eventually becoming part owner. He and his co-owner, an uncle, sold Farmers State Bank to Waypoint Bank in 2014. Farmer State Bank’s business was mainly agricultural. Frontier County agriculture is 59% livestock, 20% corn, plus soybeans, sorghum and wheat. After selling the bank, Brockmeier continued working at his insurance agency, but it only ran for a years until he sold it. Now his mission is to conserve nature; he’s been photographing it for 40 years.

Born in Eustis, Brockmeier grew up on a farm, where he grew to appreciate wildlife and nature. He and his wife, Judy, have four children and 10 grandchildren.

Brockmeier assists Frontier County with the bluebird population. They require boxes in which to nest if they’re unable to find a tree with a hole from a woodpecker, or from a fallen branch. Sometimes, a bluebird box offers a surprise.

“I was doing my bluebird box rounds when I came up on a bluebird flying above the nest and just chirping away,” he said. “And when I got close to the nest, I could see a snake in there. And so I opened up the box from behind and the snake was going around in the box and finally it kind of popped out in his head and I had a little camera with me. And I was getting close, and I didn’t realize how close I was getting and jumped back. We have rattlesnakes all the time, and I’m always on guard.”

Brockmeier’s photographs draw the viewer into the nature of Frontier County. It can also help someone recover from tragedy.

When a farm woman was severely injured in a car crash, requiring multiple surgeries and titanium, Brockmeier sent his drone to take a photograph of her farm. He sent the photo to her. She told him, “Don, when things were tough, I looked at that picture and said, ‘I’m gonna go home.’ ” And she did. “Photography can do a lot of good.”