[KEARNEY, NEBRASKA] — When you first get to the river, it’s 6am and pitch black. You feel your way down a path, heading toward The Noise. You want to get there before they see you coming. Slowly, the shrieks get louder and louder as the first light slowly begins to open its eyes. Suddenly, you start to make out shapes stepping out of the darkness. Big dark masses grow more detailed the lighter it gets. What you thought was an island or sandbar is actually a throbbing, humming mass of birddom. And they suddenly appear out of the darkness, like the invasion of Normandy on DDay. Hundreds of thousands of them, nearly covering the shallow river from shore to shore.

We wait while the first pilot flocks start to take to the sky. 10-20-30 at a time. The rest remained shivering their wings in the water. When are they leaving? You don’t want to blink in fear of missing something. We were straddled along a bridge across the shallow Platte with others. But as it grew lighter, we noticed power lines across the street, between us and the birds. We delicately crossed the street and down into a ravine, prime grandstand seats without obstructions. No we had a strait shot. And that’s when it happened. For no noticeable reason, they all started taking off at once. The shrieks turned to a deafening roar. Hundreds of thousands of giant prehistoric cranes all doing the same thing at once. Everyone stopped breathing, mouths agape. The sky was swimming with birds, wings flapping to catch the wind. It was primordial. Never have seen anything like it before.

PICTURES DO NOT DO THIS PHENOMENON JUSTICE. YOU GOTTA HEAR IT AND REALLY SEE IT HERE:

HERE’S A LOOK AT A SUNRISE LAUNCHING:

The next morning, you get up to watch the even more impressive sunrise takeoff. When you first get to the river, it’s 6am and pitch black. You feel your way down a path, heading toward The Noise. You want to get there before they see you coming. Slowly, the shrieks get louder and louder as the first light slowly begins to open its eyes. Suddenly, you start to make out shapes stepping out of the darkness. Big dark masses grow more detailed the lighter it gets. What you thought was an island or sandbar is actually a throbbing, humming mass of birddom. And they suddenly appear out of the darkness, like the invasion of Normandy on DDay. Hundreds of thousands of them, nearly covering the shallow river from shore to shore. It’s cloudy and misty, I think they hit the snooze alarm to catch a few more winks.

First Light. 6:45am. You are lulled back to sleep listening to the gentle cooing that you heard when it was dark, but now see the source.

And then like that, Foof-foof-foof… they all instantly alight. Hundreds of thousands at once. No one can figure out why. They just do. Wingspans two meters wide, flapping against the mist. Circling and swirling like a giant whirlpool in the sky. With a roar like Messi scored a goal. Everyone stands silently. In awe.

So this happens every damn morning for six weeks every spring, as it has for, literally, millions of years. They take off to go gorge in the fields for the day, then reverse this and come back to the river at sunset each night. The population peaks starting next week. We were told by official birders this morning that there are only 250,000 this weekend, it should peak past 650,000 starting next weekend. I can’t imagine.

I do not dance. However, I did pick up a couple of mating tips from this guy. After all, it’s been working for their species for 8 million frickin’ years…. I need to evolve. (I have the same legs) Wait… this is also how I look when I dance. Which is why I do not dance. Never mind. I’m going to go find some penguins… #armsdown #flippersup Actually, if you look at the tips of his wings, they look like those fake-beak feeding hands they use for orphan cranes at rescue centers. Which is ironic: wings imitating hands imitating beaks…the Circle of Life.

We didn’t know enough to reserve one of the limited spots in the Rowe Audubon blinds, but wish we did. We went after the morning liftoff and they let us see what it was like. YOU ARE RIGHT THERE. All those birds right in your face, in the prime sleeping location

These guys are the stragglers after all the others have flown off — they must have eaten what I ate last night. Listen and you can hear their crazy cackles. This is shot from the Audubon Preserve blinds in a prime spot right on the river, which we were not smart enough to reserve in advance. You get right up close, your face right in them, compared to my far away shots before. Imagine, just an hour before I shot this, there were two hundred thousand Sandhill cranes right here. These aren’t ducks. Each is a metre and a half tall and two metre wingspans. They’re big. These guys date back to dinosaurs. There are only a few spots in the blinds and they book up far in advance. Next year’s spots open up for reserving first week in January. There’s a great article in the Wall Street Journal describing being right here. google WSJ.com and “Sandhill cranes”. The Sandhill crane migration ranks right up there with the last of the great migrations left in the world, along with the March of the Penguins, the wildebeests in Africa and the caribou up north, reindeer in Lapland. Every March thru early April.

We were here in the middle of Nebraska, just outside Kearney, along the the shores of the shallow and meandering Platter River. Water from Colorado and North Dakota, now here to feed the fields…and these damn old birds. We were here to watch one of the last Great Migrations on the planet. The Sandhill Cranes. Each and every spring, as has happened since the Platte was formed 10,000 years ago, sandhill cranes stop here at the halfway point of their 10,000 mile return journey from Mexico to Alaska. Here in the safety of this shallow stream, here in the bounty of the fallowed fields. Everything ready to pop for Spring. Over 500,000 cranes come here, 80% or the sandhill crane population on the planet. All right here. At the same time.

A SUNSET LANDING:

When we got to the first sunset arrival of the cranes, we were on a bridge by the Ft. Kearney Recreational Area and wondering “Oh no, are we in the wrong place? Should we move? Are they all over there?”

For over 2 million years Sandhill Cranes have been stopping each spring right here on the shallow shoals of the Platte River in the middle of Nebraska. Like a Flying J truck stop or AutoGrill, this river basin is their refueling and fattening up halfway point on their 10,000 mile trek back up to Canada. They flock and gorge in the nearby fields all day and every sunset they mass in the sky as far as you can see, endless rows coming in for landing, ankle-deep in the middle of the Platte all through the night. All half-million of them.

Sandhill Cranes are one of the oldest bird species on the planet, going back 20 million years. Watching 500,000 of these huge ancient birds take off at once is almost primordial. Like watching lava flow out of a volcano, or wildebeests running for their lives. But these guys are just going to look for something to eat. #isuggestlamb. How amazing. Listen to the roar. It’s louder than SoulCycle.

Wasn’t too crowded on the bridge, but definitely get there about an hour before sunset to stake your claim. The bridge is really long.

And the first waves start to arrive, just before sunset.

They start out slowly, single waves, then more and more..

The noise is deafening. For over 2 million years Sandhill Cranes have been stopping each spring right here on the shallow shoals of the Platte River in the middle of Nebraska. Like a Flying J truck stop or AutoGrill, this river basin is their refueling and fattening up halfway point on their 10,000 mile trek back up to Canada. They flock and gorge in the nearby fields all day and every sunset they mass in the sky as far as you can see, endless rows coming in for landing, ankle-deep in the middle of the Platte where they’ll wade through the night. All half-million of them.

The noise is deafening. For over 2 million years Sandhill Cranes have been stopping each spring right here on the shallow shoals of the Platte River in the middle of Nebraska. Like a Flying J truck stop or AutoGrill, this river basin is their refueling and fattening up halfway point on their 10,000 mile trek back up to Canada. They flock and gorge in the nearby fields all day and every sunset they mass in the sky as far as you can see, endless rows coming in for landing, ankle-deep in the middle of the Platte where they’ll wade through the night. All half-million of them.

The noise is deafening. For over 2 million years Sandhill Cranes have been stopping each spring right here on the shallow shoals of the Platte River in the middle of Nebraska. Like a Flying J truck stop or AutoGrill, this river basin is their refueling and fattening up halfway point on their 10,000 mile trek back up to Canada. They flock and gorge in the nearby fields all day and every sunset they mass in the sky as far as you can see, endless rows coming in for landing, ankle-deep in the middle of the Platte where they’ll wade through the night. All half-million of them.

And just like the cranes, off they’re gone.

We kinda winged this trip at the last minute. A followup to our lighting of the Kansas Flint Hills a year before. We drove from Denver on a Saturday morning, arriving in Kearney just in time to check out the sunset landing of the cranes. As they have for thousands of years, the cranes spend their days gorging in the surrounding fields, picking at the chaff and loading up in fat before the last leg of their journey north. But right after sunset, actually right it turns dark, out of every corner of the sky they come. Wave after crooked wave of shrieking, honking cranes. The waves get more frequent, more intense and louder as they mass. The sky is busy in every direction. They taunt us, landing in nearby fields before their final squat into the river right as it turns dark.

The next thing to see is the sunrise flight, where after Sleep Standing in the safety of the river, they all take off at once. There are lots of great resources online to find out more. Like this awesome Wall Street Journal article on the migration, in this perfect CBS Sunday Morning segment, here’s the Grand Island sandhill viewing site, and a great online brochure from the Kearney Visitor’s Bureau, and this Kearney site which has everything you need. One thing we wish we did was to visit the Rowe Audubon blinds that everyone refers to. There are only a couple dozen slots for viewing and they start booking up in early January, so put it on your calendar. I will mine. There you are right up close in the best, most intense section of the river. Here’s a live webcam, you can watch right before it gets dark in Nebraska, or before the sun rises.

These guys are the stragglers after all the others have flown off — they must have eaten what I ate last night. Listen and you can hear their crazy cackles. This is shot from the Audubon Preserve blinds in a prime spot right on the river, which we were not smart enough to reserve in advance. You get right up close, your face right in them, compared to my far away shots before. Imagine, just an hour before I shot this, there were two hundred thousand Sandhill cranes right here. These aren’t ducks. Each is a metre and a half tall and two metre wingspans. They’re big. These guys date back to dinosaurs. There are only a few spots in the blinds and they book up far in advance. Next year’s spots open up for reserving first week in January. There’s a great article in the Wall Street Journal describing being right here. google WSJ.com and “Sandhill cranes”. The Sandhill crane migration ranks right up there with the last of the great migrations left in the world, along with the March of the Penguins, the wildebeests in Africa and the caribou up north, reindeer in Lapland. Every March thru early April.

I like this fence. Built by Eagle Scouts.

I like this fence. Built by Eagle Scouts.

Nebraska

I do not dance. However, I did pick up a couple of mating tips from this guy. After all, it’s been working for their species for 8 million frickin’ years…. I need to evolve. (I have the same legs) Wait… this is also how I look when I dance. Which is why I do not dance. Never mind. I’m going to go find some penguins… #armsdown #flippersup Actually, if you look at the tips of his wings, they look like those fake-beak feeding hands they use for orphan cranes at rescue centers. Which is ironic: wings imitating hands imitating beaks…the Circle of Life.

Nebraska

Nebraska

The flocks will flock to the fields all day and gorge among the stalks and chaff before heading right back to the river, joining their beaucoup buds in a Standing Sleep all night in the shallow waters of the unbelievably serene Platte River. Sandhill cranes mate for life and usually lay two eggs. You can see them flying in groups of four, even when glommed onto a mass formation, the teenager birds hanging with the ‘rents and going out to dinner. Unless one of the kid birds acted like a teenager, then they travel as three.

Nebraska

Here’s a great map of the different public places to view the cranes. I marked the places that matched the photos and video above.

HERE’S A LIVJECAM FROM THE AUDUBON BLINDS. YOU WON’T SEE MUCH EXCEPT DURING MARCH AND EARLY APRIL, SUNRISE OR SUNSET. MOST OF THE BIRDS ARE OUT IN THE FIELDS DURING THE DAY.  BUT HERE’S WHAT IT CAN LOOK LIKE AT 6:41 Mtn on 16 MAR 16: