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Each spring over 500,000 Sandhill Cranes migrate through a 90 mile wide section of Nebraska. They stop along the Platte River between Grand Island and Kearney and stay for 3 or 4 weeks. They sleep along the sandbars of the Platte River, feed in the corn fields, and gather in the open fields.
These pictures were taken from the Hike-Bike Bridge which crosses the Platte River. The bridge is in the Fort Kearny Recreational Area.
Here, a deer is crossing the river.
And now two deer.
Also from the Hike-Bike Bridge but the next morning.
There are several hundred cranes in the picture.
The sun is rising.
This is in front of the Kearney Visitors Center. It's a good place to get more information about the cranes and surrounding area.
In the morning, we went on a trolley ride looking for cranes. We also saw 4 beautiful deer as they jumped a fence.
Bird feeders at Rowe Sanctuary.
This is a little pond a few miles south of Rowe Sanctuary where quite a few cranes gather during most of the day.
They're coming in for a landing.
The corn fields are cut so that the geese can't land in the fields but the cranes can.
Back to the bird feeders at Rowe Sanctuary.
And one more time to the pond.
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This is located about 13 miles south of Kearney. Lots of ducks and geese stop here on their way north.
A truck was driving on a trail and disturbed the birds.
One morning, we went to a Rowe Sanctuary blind before sunrise and viewed the cranes. You meet at 5:00 AM and then go to the blind.
The blurred light is from a car on I-80.
As the sun started coming up, the cranes started to take off.
As you can see, there were a few here.
The Great Platte River Road Archway Monument spans I-80.
The displays are pretty neat. Many of the rooms have 3 or 4 story ceilings. The backgrounds completely surround the scenes. This gives a much more realistic display.
We left half a day early because of an 11" snow storm in Iowa and more storms
predicted all the way home. Iowa was a mess. The expressway was clear for us but
they had it freeze over the night before. We saw 4 overturned semi's, about 100
semi's in the ditches, and at least 200 cars in the ditches. Luckily, the road
was clear and dry almost all the way (about a 15 hour drive).
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