On the Road is a weekday feature spotlighting reader photo submissions.
From the exotic to the familiar, whether you’re traveling or in your own backyard, we would love to see the world through your eyes.
Looks like we have a beautiful week ahead!
(click below for a bigger, non-blurry version)
Albatrossity
Last weekend Elizabeth and I, as well as three of the students in her Wild Literature class, traveled to Nebraska to view the greatest wildlife migration spectacle in North America, one million Sandhill Cranes massing along the Platte River and bulking up before they continue their journey to Alaska, Canada, and Siberia. I have made this journey many times in the past, but, like the cranes, somehow I have an urge to return year after year after year. It was a good trip, so I’ll take a brief hiatus from chronicling our westward trip in 2015, and pick that up again next week.

It’s nearly spring, even in Flyover Country, but it snowed in central Nebraska the day before our scheduled trip to view cranes from a blind on the north side of the Platte River. This was a bit alarming because we were planning to camp near Grand Island. Elizabeth and I had the teardrop trailer to keep us off the cold ground, but the students only had tents and ThermaRest pads and sleeping bags. Fortunately, we found some snow-free campsites, and the students were still game for the camping adventure (it would definitely give them something to write about in their journals!), so we set up camp and headed to the Crane Trust facility for our next adventure. Click here for larger image.

A puffed-up American Robin (Turdus migratorius), enjoying the sunshine and blue skies in a tree with some burgeoning springtime buds. Click here for larger image.

Those of you who have been to see cranes along the Platte in March know the drill; those of you who have not, well, you need to bucket-list this experience. After a brief orientation session to alert us to the do’s and don’ts of viewing these magnificent creatures from a riverside blind, we headed out to the blind about an hour before sunset. With 25 or so other folks in the blind, we settled in to view some birds. Lots of birds, and not just cranes. Here are some Northern Pintails (Anas acuta) flying into the sunset, while a bunch of cranes loaf of the far bank. Click here for larger image.

Other duck species also use the Platte River. These Mallards (Anas platyrhynchos) look pretty good in their nuptial plumage, and in the golden hour light, with a skein of cranes in the background. Click here for larger image.

A small group of Common Mergansers (Mergus merganser) fished and preened in front of us for a while. The river here is pretty shallow, so they didn’t have to do very much diving! Click here for larger image.

As the sun got lower, more Sandhill Cranes (Antigone canadensis) arrived and lounged around on the far bank. The skies were filled with endless sinuous shifting lines of cranes, heading toward the river from wherever they had been feeding during the day. And I would be remiss if I did not mention that a huge part of this experience is auditory. Tens of thousands of cranes can make some noise… Here is a brief video to give you a taste of the soundscape. Click here for larger image.

Where’s Waldo? We had been told that a single Whooping Crane (Grus americana) had been seen the day before from this blind. Whooping Cranes typically migrate later than the Sandhills, and early April is the best time to see them. And there are only a few hundred in the world, so our expectations were low, because that single bird could be anywhere up or down the river from here. Nevertheless, Elizabeth was the first to spot this bird, directly across the river from us, and thankfully in front of the growing mass of Sandhill Cranes so that it stood out from the crowd even more. Note the grazing deer in the background as well. Click here for larger image.

Another shot of the Whooping Crane, as it came out even further from the Sandhill flock. It seemed to know that it was posing for a long-distance portrait. Click here for larger image.

Later in the evening, as photons faded and stars began to twinkle above us, the cranes moved closer, into the shallow sandbar-filled river. They spend the night with their feet in the water. This is for protection against predators like coyotes or bobcats, who would have to make some splashy noises before they reached the edge of a flock. The light was very low, shutter speed was very low, but this bird still stands out from the crowd even in a lousy picture. Click here for larger image.

After a chilly night in the campground, but refreshed by the events of the previous day, we broke camp and headed to a local truck stop for a hearty warm breakfast and conversation. Then we headed back home, stopping to view some of the many foraging flocks of cranes in the corn stubble fields near the river. I’m sure they were saying “See ya next year!” Click here for larger image.
Trivia Man
Is it your first Whooper?
We are close enough but somehow have never made it out for the migration. Here in Madison we have a few sandhills wandering through the neighborhood. Strange to see them walking on city streets.
Nelle
I so love that rattling cry of cranes. Does Elizabeth have a good description of it?
I most remember it in the darkness of morning in Fairbanks as I came out the door to drive my husband to the airport. Late August, early September. They (and all the birds, it seemed) were migrating south as we usually did after summers in Alaska, but this year, we were staying. It was such a farewell sound.
Nelle
Just to add context…my husband was a summer bush pilot (mostly summer, sometimes a temporary relief in winter) based on Barter Island in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, northeast Alaska. I was up there for parts or all of eight summers. Sandhill cranes came on the island up there. Tge mention in my previous comment was from a year that we shifted to Fairbanks for autumn, leaving Alaska in December that year.
We’ve been to the Platte about four times. Coming in to Grand Island by small plane, we were among the birds (at safe distance) themselves. That was joyful. Going there is addictive. I need to be watching the Webcam. I think it is from Rowe, right?
Rob
I haven’t made it over there for the crane migration and at this point it doesn’t look like I will. A few Sandhill Cranes winter every year in the greater greater Washington DC area, and sometimes I am lucky enough to see them when I go looking. Three mornings ago a couple of lucky people in DC itself saw two cranes heading north; that is maybe the fourth or fifth time Sandhill Cranes have been noted in the District of Columbia.
scribbler
I have been to the Platte in late March only once, but it was unforgettable. You cannot underestimate the audial experience. The sound of thousands of cranes swooping in at sunset is primeval, primordial. I hope to return again soon.
SteveinPHX
Boy! That’s a lot of cranes. Thank you.
Albatrossity
@Trivia Man: No, I have seen Whooping Cranes in Nebraska once before, in Kansas many times, and also in TX, NM and Idaho once. Still it is a magical moment when you see one; the fact that I can remember all of those encounters vividly is a testament to that!
@scribbler: Yes, pictures don’t do justice to this experience, but the audio experience really has to be in real life, on the ground in Nebraska. The evening gatherings on the river are amazing audioscapes, as the birds slowly filter in and the sound slowly gets louder and louder. But if you have been there in the morning, when all the birds take off simultaneously, the roar is instantaneous and visceral. Unforgettable, for sure.
@Nelle: Yes, there is a webcam at the Rowe Sanctuary. Give it a listen right now!
Michael Bersin
My in-laws used to live in a neighborhood in Middleton, Wisconsin just a very short walk to the Pheasant Branch Conservancy. Even in the off season I would have the opportunity to get an image with a long lens of a pair of Sandhill Cranes in flight – once in December at five below.
Betty
@Albatrossity: Wow! Just amazing to watch them even on a webcam.
Albatrossity
@Betty: And with the sound turned up!
bluefoot
These are great! I especially love the photo of the mallards – the light, the depth with the cranes in the background. It’s like a painting.
Xavier
Sometimes on my bike rides down by the Rio Grande I’ll hear the cranes, and then spot them circling so far overhead that they are just specks. Amazing how far their cries carry.
pieceofpeace
Spectacular photos! And with a perfect backdrop.
I assume there’s a birding site for gathering preserves in CA, so will look around and plan a visit. Thanks.
cckids
Gorgeous photos, as always!
I was also in Grand Island (my hometown) for the weekend; my niece was getting married. So no sunset viewing for us, but my sister & I went out and caught the dawn chorus & sunrise with the cranes off a little tributary of the Platte.
It was unforgettable, and definitely a bucket-list checkoff!
cope
Wonderful pictures and narrative, thank you. It’s nice knowing that students were willing to go along, camp out in less than ideal conditions and take in such a spectacle.
As for sandhill cranes, when we lived in Florida, a teacher I worked with lived on a small lake that attracted them as well as other birds. She was particularly vocal about her disdain for the cranes because of their noise and prodigious shit generating capabilities, things they liked to do in her yard in particular. Also, too, my wife often had to navigate a parking lot at the hospital where she worked, wary of the Sandhill cranes that liked to wander amongst the cars looking for dropped fast food.
StringOnAStick
Two things I failed to do before we left CO: Go see the cranes along the S Platte, and make it to Mesa Verde. I’ll be back at some point and I will try to time it to do both. It will be a lot of miles between those two places but it will be worth it.
I did see (heard them first) Sandhills in N central MI. That bell like warble is definitely dinosaur talk!
Madeleine
One October many years ago I accompanied a friend—a composer planning to record the cranes—as they arrived one evening at a marsh in SE Michigan. They gathered slowly and, as a result, not loudly. But we had stopped to see some small groups foraging in cornfields earlier that afternoon. I have more distinct memories of individuals calling and landing that sunny afternoon.
Edit: StringOnAStick—yes! A bell-like warble!
Mark von Wisco
I live near the Wisconsin River in Central Wisconsin. I haven’t seen any sandhill cranes yet, but I heard some crane calls on one of my runs along the river late last week. There is a lot of marsh land in my general area. We get a fair number of sandhill cranes nesting.