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 Paul Johnsgard
If the sandhill crane had been called the “sacred crane,” something
like the sacred ibis of Egypt, for example, it might have been
accorded more respect by the general public. Instead, many
Nebraskans still confuse sandhill cranes with great blue herons, a
much more serious taxonomic blunder than, for another example,
referring to some distant cousin as a “dumb ape.”
Sandhill cranes were not, as some imagine, named for the
Nebraska Sandhills, although the species once nested in the marshes
there and they still frequent these same marshes in spring and
fall. For nearly all of the twentieth century the cranes used
Nebraska only as a way station to and from their breeding grounds,
but in the late 1990s single pairs of cranes were known to have
nested in the Rainwater Basin region.
Even if the cranes have not nested here continuously, they have
used the Platte Valley for untold millennia as a prime staging
area. Fossil remains of a sandhill crane dating back at least 8
million years have been found, suggesting the sandhill crane’s love
affair with Nebraska is a very long one indeed. From the time the
Platte River becomes ice free in February until almost the middle
of April, hundreds of thousands of sandhill cranes use the valley
every year, by far the largest assemblage of any cranes in the
world. Along dozens of the more remote stretches of river, roosts
of up to 20,000 birds gather to spend the night standing in shallow
waters. They select the widest stretches of river that offer nearly
vegetation-free sandy islands and sandbars, which places them out
of danger of land-based predators such as coyotes. Eagles may still
pose a threat to sick or wounded birds, but a healthy crane is
nearly an even match for an eagle, unless the crane is attacked in
the sky when the eagle has the advantage of surprise.
We do not know what originally drew the cranes to the Platte,
but the unique present-day combination of a wide, sandy river,
adjacent wet meadows with a supply of invertebrate foods for a
source of calcium, and an almost unlimited amount of waste corn in
nearby fields for getting abundant carbohydrates that can be
converted and stored as fat provide the magic attraction now.
Millions of snow geese, Canada geese, and other geese join in on
this feast, as do several million ducks, making March in Nebraska a
bird-watcher’s paradise. This alone is enough to warm the heart
during the long days of winter, and the sounds of cranes filling
the sky when they finally do arrive is at least as thrilling as
hearing a massed choir singing the triumphant chorus to Beethoven’s
Ninth Symphony.
By permission of the University of Nebraska Press. © 2001 by the
University of Nebraska Press. Available wherever books are sold or
from the University of Nebraska Press, 800.526.2617, and on the Web
at nebraskapress.unl.edu.
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