Sandhill Cranes 2011

22-23 March; Central Nebraska --

Grumpy flew to Omaha on 22 March where he picked up a Nissan Sentra and his kid sister to drive west to Gibbon NE, near the larger town/city of Kearney. We had reservations for that evening in the "'Steve' viewing blind" located up-river from the Rowe Sanctuary headquarters.

The blind is a building resembling a railway box car, with rectangular windows cut out on the river side, through which the viewing customers could see (naked eyeball or binoculars) or photograph the antics of the Sandhill Cranes as they came in from the surrounding corn and grain fields to "roost" for the night by standing on sandbars or in the shallow water around the sandbars. The Steve blind is located less than 50 feet from the edge of the river and this year there was a small sandbar which had formed just off-shore about 20 feet. So the cranes that chose this spot to roost were within 75 feet of where we were.

As seems to be Grumpy's modus operandi with anything involving technology gadgets, he found his camera to be inoperable this evening after he arrived at the blind. After trying to get several general photos to use for background information (for example the appearance of the nearby sandbar, on which he hoped hundreds of cranes would soon inhabit), Grumpy deduced that the camera was trying to tell him that the memory card was full!

So, without a camera, Grumpy concentrated his efforts this evening on obtaining the best possible sound recordings of the crane noises that were emanating from the cranes standing in the river as well as an impressively-loud "whooshing" sound when the major flock of cranes came flying in to land for the night. I could find no means by which to post this sound here.

How could the camera memory be full, Grumpy pondered? He had just moved all of the photos out of the card before he left on this trip! Later, at the motel that night, he found that a portion of the "Backup" from his laptop had been saved on this card. This happened because Grumpy used the same USB port and cord for the card reader as had been previously hooked to his portable hard-drive. Well, all's well that ends well: the backup records were deleted and the 1 GB card was now ready for our early morning reservation.

The morning started bright and early with just a few light clouds here and there. Since flash pictures are not permitted (no unnatural lights or sounds are allowed which might disturb the cranes) this photo of the dawn light is the first photo that Grumpy's Sony Alpha would allow. 

About 15-20 minutes later it was finally light enough for this first set of photos (combined into a panorama) taken of the cranes. 

This panorama encompasses a 150-degree wide-angle view, or about 200-300 feet of the gaggle of cranes roosting on "our" sandbar. The fuzzy edge at the left is the corner of my viewing window, which limited my view of the full extent of this nearby flock of cranes.

Later on, at a signal known only by the Sandhill Cranes, most of them took off in a loud burst of "whooshing" sound, like a prolonged gust of wind, as their wings beat the morning air to lift their 15-20 pound bodies from the water, and away they all went, off for another day of foraging in the nearby corn and grain fields. During the 3-4 weeks they stay here on the Platter River, they pick up grain dropped from the harvest and gain about 20% body weight which they will use to energize their continued migration to their nesting grounds in the northern U.S. states, and Canadian provinces of Saskatchewan, Alberta and the Yukon; Alaska and even as far as Siberia. They have been doing this for hundreds, perhaps thousands of years.

After this major "fly-off" there remained a few birds which our guide described as "immature" (last year's hatchlings and "disowned" two and three year-olds). Later along the migration route, last year's hatchlings will also be disowned by their parents (who mate for life). Many of these immature cranes displayed the leaping and head-bowing gestures associated with courting, although it was evident that some of the displays were as much to show off in front of fellow males as to impress young lady cranes. It was comical to watch their "teenage" antics. As the morning sun illuminated their colorful plumage in this high resolution photo, the viewer may click on it for an opportunity to zoom in for greater detail.