The Seward Magazine Club meets this evening and I plan to report on an article from the March Smithsonian Magazine on the Sandhills Cranes. Cranes are among the planet's most successful life-forms, having outlasted millions of species (99 percent of species that ever existed are now extinct). They have been around for over 30 million years. Each spring some 500,000 Sandhills Cranes spend about 6-7 weeks along the Platte River in Central Nebraska on their migration from the winter grounds in Texas to their summer area in Canada. While in Nebraska they scrounge the harvested corn fields for food that enables them to add 20% to their weight. It is here that they do their mating dance and prepare for their trip to Canada where the chicks are hatched. According to the Audubon Society's Rowe Sanctuary in Gibbon there were over 70,000 viewers last year from every State in the Union and from 47 Foreign Countries. Nebraska has many unique natural attractions, but this is certainly among the most popular. While the migration has gone on for eons of time, it wasn't until the recent 20-30 years that the Platte River Crane Habitat Trust was established and the Rowe Sanctuary was built. Micheal Forsberg, a local, nationally recognized wildlife photographer has done a great deal to publicize the migration. Seeing the Sandhills Cranes here in Nebraska is probably on more peoples Bucket List than anything else in the state.
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