The squawks, honks and rattles grew louder as we stepped out of the van and crept through the woods toward the blind. Just yards ahead, in front of the simple plywood structure, thousands of sandhill cranes were standing side by side in the North Platte River shallows, calling to one another as they waited for dawn.
Each spring an estimated 80% of the world’s sandhill crane population passes through the North Platte and Platte River valleys in Nebraska, a stopover on the birds’ annual migration from Mexico and the American Southwest to their breeding grounds in northern Canada and Alaska.
I’d seen more than 1,000 cranes the afternoon before, feeding in empty cornfields outside the city of North Platte, just a 3.5-hour drive from Broomfield. Peeking through the window of my parked car, I’d watched the 4-foot-tall birds peck at waste grain and use their long, pointed bills to probe the ground for edible roots, insects and snails.
Sandhill cranes pack on the pounds, gaining 15% to 20% of their body weight, during their spring layover in Nebraska. It’s fuel for the long flight north. But I’d seen some pause while feeding to “dance,” leaping into the air with wings spread wide, ruffling their feathers and occasionally tossing small twigs into the air. It had been quite a show.
Now 12 of us were sitting silently inside the blind while the shadowy shapes of cranes slowly came into focus. Just moments before sunrise, the birds’ calls took on a new urgency – and then, all at once, perhaps 500 cranes lifted their wings and took to the sky. They circled two or three times, then headed off for another day of foraging. One after another, flocks up and down the river gathered, circled and flew.
For a few minutes, the air rang with their rattling “bugle calls,” which can be heard more than two miles away. Then sunlight reached the riverbank, and the cranes were gone.
This birder couldn’t stop smiling.
Post and photos by Christine Kindl
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Sandhill cranes typically visit Nebraska in huge numbers
from late February through early April, with peak spring migration occurring in
mid-March. Visitor centers along the flyway, in North Platte, Kearney,
Hastings, and Grand Island, Neb., have information about viewing sites and
tours.
