All I can say is , "Wow"!

Some friends took me to the Rowe Wildlife Sanctuary on the Platte River to see the Sandhill Cranes. I was literally astonished at what I saw.

First off, my friends' daughter, Keanna, is an employee of the sanctuary and often appears on local TV to promote the work there. She, of course, gave us the guided tour and even arranged to have us participate in a catered dinner with the staff.

We were there for the evening "show" when the cranes return to the Platte to rest for the night after having spent the day foraging in the fields for food. These cranes are heading north to Canada, Alaska and Siberia to nest and raise the next crop of young Sandhills (For whatever reason, newly hatched cranes are called "colts"). They stop at the Platte for about a month to "refuel" and gain strength for the rest of their journey, increasing their body weight by about 18%, according to Keanna. It is the sheer numbers of these cranes, though, that absolutely boggled my mind.


On a fifty mile stretch of the Platte there are currently 400,000 Sandhill Cranes. We were told that is approximately 80% of all the cranes in the world. They leave the Platte at daylight each day to forage in the fields and return at dusk to the safety of the river. During the day, the cranes search the fields for leftover corn from the harvest. I have read that they are doing the farmers a favor by eating that corn: If left to sprout, the seeds produce inferior and unwanted corn. The cranes also pick through the available "cow pies" looking for undigested goodies. That's not my idea of a great meal, but if it works for the cranes, so be it.

Using 50X binoculars in the fading light, I was looking down the river at an area about the size of four or five football fields packed with cranes. I asked Keanna how many she thought were in that area and she said, "Oh, about 40,000". We are not talking little canaries or sparrows here, folks, these are pretty big birds. They stand almost three feet tall and weigh about 9 pounds on the average. Holey Moley (As Captain Marvel used to say), that's a lot of big birds in one small area.

They are easily spooked, and for those in the prepared "blinds", no flash photography is permitted. Noise is kept to a minimum. Keanna told us she regularly relieves people in the blinds of cellophane packages of munchies. The noise of opening the package will send the cranes flying. In the photo above, something has frightened the birds and they are taking to the safety of the skies.

The prohibition of flash photography means that pictures will normally be taken with 35mm film rated at 800 ASA or higher. Except for costly high end products, most digital cameras cannot compensate for the low light of dusk and dawn when the cranes are most at rest. using 800 ASA film out here means a trip to Kearney (60 miles) to a professional camera store, as you won't normally find it at Wal-Mart or Target.

With its shallow waters and hundreds of islets, the Platte is an ideal haven for waterfowl. Predators, particularly coyotes, find it very difficult to sneak up on them when wading through water is involved. Wile E. Coyote would get no meals here, even with the help of products from the Acme people.

Counting cranes, geese, ducks and all other types of migrating waterfowl, authorities estimate that 14 to 16 million birds pass through the migration skyway in mid-America each year. For more than a month I could see flocks overhead every day winging their way north. In the fall, I expect I'll see them heading south.

The Sandhills Cranes generally winter in southern New Mexico and southwestern Texas in marshes and estuaries. Life is not necessarily secure there, however, as those states allow hunters to take the cranes as allowable game. Nebraska is the only state in the union that forbids the hunting of cranes, and that is remarkable considering that this is a big, big hunting state, so much so that some people claim that the opening of deer season should be a religious holiday.

I intend to be at the sanctuary each spring and fall for this spectacular show of mother nature at work. In the spring the month is March. Keanna told us that by mid April all the cranes will be gone and the Platte River will lazily wind its way toward the Missouri without the companionship of nearly half a million spectacular birds.

What a sight. What a place this is.