Nebraska Bird Partnership

It sure looks like we’re going to have sandhill cranes around for the entire winter.  In fact, the consensus among biologists is that the number of cranes has actually grown over the last couple of weeks.  There was even a sighting of three whooping cranes this week, a common event in April, but nearly unheard of in January.

If you haven’t been following this story, Nebraska’s Central Platte River is normally the site of a massive staging event of sandhill cranes each spring, when about 600,000 cranes converge on the river.  Those cranes roost overnight in the river and spend their days feeding and building body condition for the rest of their migration and the breeding season.  Typically, cranes begin arriving on the Platte in mid-February and are mostly gone by early April.

Read the full article and see more pics from The Prairie Ecologist blog.