It’s an aerial spectacle like no other, with over half a million Sandhill Cranes converging on the Platte River valley in Central Nebraska on their epic journey northward every spring, from late February to early April.
Jane Goodall calls the arrival of the Sandhill Cranes here one of the world’s ten greatest wildlife migrations. We call it mesmerizing and transformative, unparalleled in our thirty years of travel around the world. If you have a bucket list, this needs to be near the top — even if you’re not necessarily a birder or hardcore wildlife enthusiast. For those whose only Nebraska experience involves whizzing through on Interstate 80, start planning your detour trip off the main drag to bond with these birds.
This is the first of a series of posts covering some ecotourism adventures we enjoyed in Nebraska, a “fly over” state perhaps more frequently known for its massive fields of corn and home to William “Buffalo Bill” Cody — buffalo hunter, soldier and showman of America’s Old West. While Nebraska farmers do, in fact, have millions of acres planted in corn — and Wild Bill seems to comes to life at his ranch, now a state historic park in North Platte — we found an unexpected abundance of ecotravel that uniquely immersed us into nature and paid dividends to the conservation efforts underway, helping preserve exactly what we can to see for generations to come. Beyond the Sandhill Crane migration, we witnessed up close the intricate prairie chicken mating ritual from a blind, plied the braided currents of the Platte River in kayaks and biked through prairie on fat tire bikes.
Sandhill Cranes’ Roosting Hotspot
“This spot is the largest bird roost in the world,” shares Chuck Cooper, President and CEO of the Crane Trust, a non-profit dedicated to preserving this migratory bird habitat along the Platte River. “We call it ‘habitat,’ but three hundred years ago you just called it [land that would become] Nebraska. We had to come up with a name for it because there is so little left. No matter how many birds come in during your viewing, you’ll still see more birds in one place than anywhere else in the world.”
And see birds you will, from thousands to potentially tens of thousands. Wave after wave, the cranes stop in this single Nebraska spot for a short few weeks every spring, just as they have for millions of years as they fly north from Mexico to their summer nesting grounds as far north as Siberia. Cranes are among the oldest living birds on Earth. With the shallow river waters offering protection from predators and a buffet of spent grain in the nearby crop fields giving nourishment, Nebraska imparts the perfect resting spot. It’s estimated that more than 80-percent of the world’s population of Sandhill Cranes converge here. Hundreds of other bird species, including eagles, ducks and geese, can also be seen.
Only about an hour’s drive apart, the two best places to view the spectacle are at the Crane Trust, near Grand Island, and the Iain Nicolson Audubon Center at Rowe Sanctuary, outside Kearney. Prime viewing will be at sunrise or sunset. While each spot has a visitor center, it’s their blinds that you’ll want to snuggle into in order to witness the birds arriving to roost at night or as they depart in the early morning. The blinds are as close as you’ll ever get to being one of the flock without getting wet. The strategically placed and camouflaged covered shelters have viewing slats or openings, allowing our group of twenty to watch or take photos, undetected by the birds.
Crane Trust Near Grand Island
The sheer breadth of the scene unfolds as you peer from the blind where you witness either the arrival of the Sandhill Cranes as the come in to roost for the night or at pre-dawn as they slowly wake up and prepare to lift off for the day. Their rowdy clatter captivated us. The Sandhill Cranes’ calls can be heard over two miles away as the birds connect with their mate and other family members, or dance around while searching for a possible lifelong partner. With an impressive height of up to four feet and six-foot wingspan, the Sandhill Crane possesses the ideal evolutionary combination for the thousands of migratory miles they fly every year.
Classy comfort meets cranes when you upgrade to the Crane Trust‘s all-inclusive VIP Experience, giving you premiere access to their toasty heated blinds, lodging on-site in their cozy Legacy Cottages (each with private bathroom), dinner and breakfast, plus a wine reception. Open your window at night in the cottage and listen to the distant chatter of cranes or calls from coyotes as you drift off to sleep.
“The sun will crack the horizon in sixty seconds,” whispers our personal guide in the blinds, Ben Dumas, Excursion Manager for the Crane Trust. Looking like a layer cake with bands of orange and blue from the sun and clouds, the sky filled with thousands of cranes already airborne in V-formations as far as the eye could see.
In the morning, the scene typically crescendos to a series of blissful moments when the birds suddenly take to flight en masse, perhaps spooked by a bald eagle landing along the river bank, as in our case. Thousands upon thousands of them lift off. Their squawking rings out as they circle about while others depart from the river, heading to feeding grounds in nearby corn fields.
Iain Nicolson Audubon Center at Rowe Sanctuary
At the Iain Nicolson Audubon Center at Rowe Sanctuary, you’ll be led to and from the blinds in reverent silence, meandering along a gravel trail the cuts through a tall grass prairie. Seasoned volunteers come from as far away as Alaska to share their passion for these cranes, guiding our way to the blind with red flashlights. The Rowe Sanctuary is a 1,150-acre refuge in the Platte River valley that serves as a welcomed resting spot for these birds. The volunteers and staff at Rowe believe conservation and land stewardship grow when we experience nature’s splendor.
We discovered during our final evening perch at Rowe Sanctuary that it only takes one to get the show underway. One crane, that is. As we gathered in anticipation for the cranes’ evening roost under cloudy skies, the shallow river bed sits open, awaiting potential evening guests. We peer forward when one crane lands on a nearby sand bar, in anticipation. Then another lands, followed by ten more. Then a hundred or two birds descend, right in front of our blind and less than a hundred feet away. Their calls riotous.
As we wrote about in our first article related to the great Sandhill Cranes migration in Nebraska, you don’t need to travel half way around the world to experience an ecotourism adventure. Just a two hour drive from the blinds at Rowe Sanctuary where you can witness the Sandhill Cranes is an entirely different nature experience that puts you less than fifty feet away from where Greater Prairie Chickens strut, boom, stomp and clash in a courtship display where the toughest male wins his mate.
“To earn a spot on the lek means you are the toughest guy on the block,” explains Carol Schlegel, Director of the McCook/Red Willow County Visitors Bureau and one of the visionaries behind this tour idea that’s an ingenious blend of both ecotourism and agritourism. “One to two males at each lek are responsible for more than 80 percent of the copulation,” she shares with a wink.
From roughly the end of March through April, there is a window of opportunity to get out in the field at dawn to view these birds. Only recently has the mating ritual evolved into a growing tourist attraction thanks to Prairie Chicken Dance Tours’ launch in 2012. “It’s one of those things that the locals take for granted but visitors from far and wide descend upon McCook to view this one-of-a-kind sight,” admits Schlegel. “We just have one reservation from our 308 local area code this year so far.”
Discovering the Lek and Prairie Chickens
“I first found the lek by accident. My neighbor has one so I figured I must have one too,” says Angus Garey, describing how he first found the lek for the Greater Prairie Chickens on his ranch, land that had been in his family since they settled here in the 1870s. “I got up early one morning and drove up in my pasture and I thought, well I’ll get up on this high spot and then I’ll listen. And maybe I can hear where they’re at. Sure enough there’s starting to just barely be light and I can hear them starting to move.”
“It got just about half light, when all of a sudden I saw one flying right in front of my pickup. And I thought, wow!” Garey continues. With his wool plaid cap and leather jacket, the tall, lanky rancher spryly narrates his discovery of the lek with the glee of a young boy on Christmas morning. “Pretty soon I had half a dozen of ’em just walking around my pickup. I’m just sittin’ there, right in the middle of the lek. They weren’t very impressed. And they kinda tried to move around me, then they all flew off. I knew about the lek about fifteen years ago. Then Carol with the tourism group said: ‘I want to see this.’ So we actually we sat on five gallon buckets in a pop-up tent and watched. That’s how this whole thing got started.
A key advantage to these tours is the full preparation you receive before you immerse and engage in this one-of-a-kind experience. The tour kicks-off the evening before your morning field outing with an orientation by Garey and Schlegel that gives you a crash course overview of Greater Prairie Chickens, including their behavior, what to expect in the blinds and viewing etiquette.
Then it’s off to bed early as the tour starts before sunrise the following morning. The town of McCook offers a range of accommodations, including the Chief Motel. Stop by the Coppermill Steakhouse for classic Nebraskan fare or journey an hour east to Sage Hill Vineyard & Winery for local sips and bed down in the “Winemaker’s Loft.”
Dance, Stomp and Boom of the Prairie Chickens
In the dark of night — very early in the morning — our group of about twenty, the most who would ever go out with Prairie Chicken Dance Tours, were shuttled from McCook to Garey’s ranch, down a rough dirt road into a patch of prairie on his land. Upon arrival, we were split into two groups, funneled into two horse trailers that served as makeshift blinds. We were advised to dress warm for those early morning breezes, but kind host Garey had blankets out just in case. While bundled up, the icy cold of the early morning was tempered by the shelter of the blinds and blankets.
We sat, silently, and waited, moving our fingers and toes to keep warm. Just as the first specks of light make the prairie around us visible, six male Prairie Chickens swooped in and landed around the perimeter of the lek, with the dominant male moving into the center. If the Sandhill Crane viewing is like a big Broadway musical with thousands on stage, the Greater Prairie Chicken encounter is an intimate, intense dramatic play where you have a front seat. These slightly larger than a football-sized birds exhibit their own special combination of motion and sound, stomping and drumming their feet rapidly in one spot while uttering a crazy mix of cackling. We stare spell-bound as the birds inflate their neck air sacs to attempt to establish dominance, popping out like a vivid, ripe orange.
“The whole thing has to do with sex,” Garey said with a smile at the orientation the previous night. “You’ll see a female sometimes walk through, strutting her stuff and looking like she isn’t paying any attention but quietly observing who she thinks might be the best male.”
As the morning sun rises, the colors pop around us. A vivid prairie palette with shades of mustard yellow, gold and dark green make us feel like we’re viewing a painting from inside our blind window. One of the males jumps several feet in the air, lands, then lowers his head and runs right into a neighbor male. Just like television, a few feathers may fly, but it’s mostly for show. Greater Prairie Chickens are rarely hurt in these skirmishes. But with an end goal of love and serving as ruler of the lek, the birds remind us it’s worth putting your heart and feathers fully in the game.
When fully light out, perhaps after an hour or a bit more, the birds suddenly fly off to feed for the day. The mating dance and ritual is on hold, until tomorrow.
Lisa Kiviristis a writer, the author of Soil Sisters and founder of theRural Women’s Project of the Midwest Organic and Sustainable Education Service. She is also Senior Fellow, Endowed Chair in Agricultural Systems at the Minnesota Institute for Sustainable Agriculture at the University of Minnesota. With her husband John D. Ivanko, she has co-authoredRural Renaissance, Homemade for Sale, the award-winningECOpreneuringand Farmstead Chefalong with operatingInn Serendipity B&Band Farm, completely powered by the wind and sun. Both are regular speakers at the Mother Earth News Fairs. As a writer, Kivirist contributes to Mother Earth News, most recently, “9 Strategies for Self-Sufficient Living“. They live on a farm in southwestern Wisconsin with their son Liam, millions of ladybugs and a 10 kW Bergey wind turbine.
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