America’s Sandhill Crane Migration Dazzles Birders, Wonder Seekers Alike

27.07.2023 - 18:49 / smartertravel.com / Jane Goodall

“It only takes one,” whispers the person next to me.

I barely catch it over the ecstatic singing of the 15,000 Sandhill Cranes that have come to roost on the deep-dusk waters of the Platte River. I hear it mostly because the same thought is ricocheting around my head, too.

That’s because two minutes ago, this stretch of the river in Nebraska was empty save for a single Sandhill Crane. Now I’m looking at more birds than I’ve seen in my entire life, combined. And thousands more are landing every minute. They’re trilling and dancing, flapping and jumping. Their sea of voices washes over the river, a constant crescendo that can be heard from more than two miles away.

Like most evenings during Nebraska’s annual spring crane migration, the pre-sunset river had been alive with the manic energy of tens of thousands of cranes. An hour ago, the cranes landed, as usual, but then the tall gray birds had abandoned water for sky after a hawk—looking to stir up trouble, lion-on-the-savannah style—buzzed this section of river. Now the sun is dipping below the horizon; some of the birds have tried to land again, but keep swirling back up into the purple sky.

“If they don’t come soon, they’re not going to settle here for the night,” says my guide, a tall retiree in a fringed fleece hat, his binoculars trained on the birds. There are two dozen of us lining the open windows of a long riverside blind, and we stay quiet, as instructed. We watch the clusters on the cold horizon and wait.

It’s a delicate dance here between humans and Sandhill Cranes. Unlike the surrounding states where the birds are hunted for sport, Nebraska has recognized the splendor of this annual migration—Jane Goodall called it one of the world’s greatest—and in recent decades has protected not just the cranes and the water, but also, with the efforts of organizations like the Crane Trust and the Audubon Society, the vital riverfront that millions of birds on the Central Flyway depend on as a waypoint each spring.

Consequently, this thin slice of South-Central Nebraska now sees a second migration every March: bird lovers flocking to the Platte for a glimpse of the action. The crane migration doesn’t just attract hardcore birders, either—it’s an unforgettable experience for anyone who wants to witness nature at its finest.

The three- to four-foot cranes settle for weeks in the shallow waters of the Platte, spending their days foraging for waste corn left in the field from last year’s harvest and plying the wetlands for snakes and snails. By the time they catch the thermals north, following a route forged into their DNA more than 10,000 years ago, they’ve gained up to 30 percent of their body weight—enough to help