Half a Million Sandhill Cranes

That's a lot of cranes...

far more than New York City has ever seen, despite the economic recovery.

Yet, a small stretch of Nebraska from Grand Island to Kearney sees this many cranes every year in the spring.   As the weather warms and winter comes to an end, the Sandhill Cranes fly from various points south and converge onto this slice of Nebraska to feed, to rest, and then to continue the journey to various points north in both Canada and Alaska. Some estimates put the number of Sandhill Cranes that land here near the Platte River on their migration route as 80% of the total Sandhill Crane population in the world:

And, to repeat myself, that's a lot of Cranes.  

If I can manage to forget thoughts (or calculations) of the increased risk of bird poop falling on my head and shoulders as I walk under a sunset sky filled with v-shaped flocks of Sandhill Cranes, I find nothing but awe and joy in the experience.   After a long day and hundreds of miles along America's highways, awe and joy are a gift totally unexpected and entirely appreciated.

As the sun approaches the horizon, the sky fills with muted oranges and pinks...

and provides a stunning backdrop to the flocks as they rise up from the horizon, one after another, rearranging their formation and order to combat the stiff wind that comes in from the Northwest.  In another day, the temperatures will plunge, the skies will darken, and one last snowstorm will come to disrupt the Nebraska spring. But, on this evening marking the end of a beautiful second day of spring, the flocks of cranes stream in along currents of unseasonably warm weather, and land in the still fallow corn fields, awaiting their first sown seed of the season.

Despite the visual wonder the cranes supply both across the overhead sky and along the vast expanses of corn fields that surround the interstate in this part of Nebraska, this is not their greatest feature.   Rather, as each flock flies overhead or takes flight from a corn field, it sings its own unique chorus of sweet coo's, as if a flock of doves has suddenly stretched and transformed into a flying sea of gracefully long necks and wide wingspans. Having heard the awful and inglorious croak of the related great blue heron, the sweet gentle song of these birds is another wonderful treat, one that fills my heart not only with gratitude but with a reminder of who took all the time to create these beautiful and unique wonders in the natural world.