by DAVE GRANT
"And so they live and have their being - these cranes - not in the present but in the wider reaches of evolutionary time. Their annual return is the ticking of the geologic clock. Upon the place of their return they confer a peculiar distinction...a paleontological patent of nobility, won in the march of aeons."
(Aldo Leopold)
The Platte. It is a waterway of reptilian shape that bewildered pioneers making the long trek west along the Oregon Trail. To the geographer it's a braided river, splitting and creeping across terrain so level that mid-westerners like to say it's pancake flat. To the Omaha Indians, this place was Ne-brath-ka the "Land of flat water" which the French fur traders transformed into platte.
For the sandhill crane, the Platte
River is their great refuge; the crucial stop in the middle of
their trek thousands of miles across the continent. Here they
have the security of the wide, shallow waters for roosting at
night and thousands of acres of open farmland to feed, socialize
and dance - an oasis where they can gorge themselves on insects,
worms, snails and especially grain spilled during the fall harvest.
During the crane season, in March and April, this area is nicknamed
in the tourist brochures "the biggest singles bar in the
world".
For birders, this is the "Crane River" - identified by naturalists as the greatest wildlife spectacle in the drive across North America and one of the dozen top birding experiences in the world. For me it is more than just a birding destination, it's a shrine for any pilgrim interested in birds and wetlands. Exploring this region also presents one with a great opportunity to see the contrast between arid and wet ecosystems. The prairie and Sandhills region to the north of the river are dry but strewn with ponds, which, where they haven't been filled by farmers are major "duck factories" for the rest of the continent. South of the Platte, although diminished from agricultural expansion, significant wetland areas survive along the river course and the Rainwater Basin. As an extra bonus to birdwatchers and botanists, the region is also the transition zone for plant and animal communities from across the breadth of the continent. Arguably, this is where "the West" begins.
I'm most interested in watching birds when they're on their best behavior, on the breeding ground and in their best plumage. But a few, like cranes, are exceptional in their behavior at other times and perhaps 90% of the world's population of sandhills congregates here in the spring. Vast numbers, almost one-half million, funnel through here, along with 10 million ducks and geese, because of the geographical setting and the river bend, but also because of habitat loss elsewhere. The great flight of migrating water-dependent birds spilling north across mid-America's Central Flyway has been compared to sand streaming through an hour glass. It's base rests on the Gulf coast, it's top in Canada, and waist is at the 80-mile dip the river takes in central Nebraska - the big bend of the Platte. It's an irresistible lure to birds and birders.
My first experience with cranes was with a captive bird at a zoo. During a behind-the-scenes tour of the bird pens with an acquaintance, I was encouraged to jump and flap my arms like a bird. The crane's response was instantaneous and marvelous. It charged us with six feet of outstretched wings - faster than I could ever do the 50-yard dash - to display, dance and bugle. I had read of Audubon being chased by a wounded and enraged whooping crane he was attempting to secure as a specimen, and I now could understand why he was forced to retreat from an exceedingly ugly antagonist...that was....defending himself. I was stunned, but immediately addicted to them. My unflappable host merely shrugged and said, "I gotta' get that guy a mate!"
Decades later, an invitation from the Chicago Audubon Society dragged me away from my usual spring haunts at the coast, and here I was, disregarding all those warnings about the midwest's rowdy weather, heading west from Omaha on the Husker Highway, into the prairie night. March had really gone out like a lamb and it was in the 80's - the warmest spot in the country and pleasant weather for any place you might want to find yourself in the spring. I was regretting being away from the beach and not having packed shorts, but it was a delightful start to the adventure.
If you're not a trucker, locals usually guess why a stranger is out here off Interstate 80 in the spring; and you get some noteworthy inquiries from hotel receptionists, pump jockeys, and waitresses once you hit the stretch between Grand Island and Kearney (And I'm not the type that wears my binoculars into restaurants.) "Are you here to see the cranes?" Many offer advice " They're up early to eat the corn. I like to go out before sun-up and hear them fly out of the river. Better get going early in the morning." I tried to be nonchalant, mentioning that I'd seen a few cranes on winter trips to Florida and Texas; but was informed that this would be "quite different."
These glamorous creatures that attracted me here are wetland dependent, but the first order of business, now that I was approaching the 100th parallel that Roger Tory Peterson identified as the transition line for western birds, was to head out on the north side of the Platte to another, drier ecological zone, the grasslands of central Nebraska.
Prairie comes from the Latin pratum (meadow), and this biome, the greatest grassland on earth, once covered a quarter of the lower 48 states. I had been to its four corners, but never to its geographical center. Because of limited rainfall and fire, grasses once dominated the landscape 1,000 miles between Chicago and Denver and 2,000 miles from the Texas coast to the Saskatchewan River in Alberta - one-ninth of North America. Nebraska was the center of this sea of grass, but today, as with most of the original landscapes that are habitable or tillable, only about one percent of it remains "intact."
When Lewis and Clark passed through the West, they reported great herds of game, sustained by an ecologically diverse community of plants and animals. Some ecologist speculate that this area was something of a sanctuary for bison and elk that were pressed on all sides by competing Indian tribes.
The introduction of the steel plow by John Deere in 1837 finally gave "sod-busters" the technology they needed to turn over the deep, dense roots of bluestem, needlegrass, blue grama and a great variety of other prairie plants, and convert this into a more manageable and profitable monoculture of breadbasket crops like corn and wheat. Once the transformation of the plains had begun, it was so rapid, that in 1878, General William Tecumseh Sherman remarked that "western America had changed more in ten years than any other place on earth in fifty."
The north side of the Platte is also the site of the Mormon Trail, where the breadth of the river gave those refugees an added sense of security while hauling their 600-pound wagons across the treeless track that, in 1820, explorer Major Stephen Long erroneously labeled The Great American Desert. The Mormons were happy to segregate themselves from the rest of the throng heading West looking for rich cropland, and like other settlers, mistakenly assumed that trees were the prime indicator of good soil. Ironically, everyone was racing to cross a grassland that was to become the most productive farmland in North America.
After a delightfully awkward moment being enlightened by a local about the difference between a farm and a ranch, and a farmer and a rancher (Later, I noticed that it has as much to do with foot gear as well as what they harvest.) I was directed down the "Old Potash Highway." (After Germany cut off exports to the U.S. from their mines, California kelp and the chemistry of prairie ponds helped supply potash for gunpowder to win the First World War.)
"Look out on the 'T' ranch",
where I had been informed, both the greater prairie chicken and
the sharp-tailed grouse perform their spring nuptials. Over the
years I have led a number of wild goose chases in Texas, looking
for leks - the stomping grounds of prairie fowl; so this
was a required stop for me.
Leks (from the Swedish word play) are mating arenas where male birds congregate to display their wares on an otherwise featureless terrain. These "booming grounds" or "strutting stages" may be a social response to the lack of cover, as well as a means to overwhelm the ability of the broad expanse of the prairie to soak up the noise from isolated males broadcasting their mating calls. It must work well because the three grouse species of the plains - the prairie chickens of the Eastern tall-grass, the sharp-tailed grouse of the mixed grass, and the sage grouse of the Western short-grass prairies, all do it, and some of the same sites have been used as long as anyone can remember.
Unlike many of my birding forays, this one had a good chance of success. Following precise, directions ("Go north on 60th Road to the stop sign, then left on One-R Road and go exactly one mile.") I headed out early to arrive, as instructed, one hour before dawn. My headlights illuminated highway advertisements confirming that I was in the right neighborhood:
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Prompt removal of dead livestock |
Conditions were ideal; no wind, no traffic, no distractions for me or the birds. I proceeded as directed ("Turn your vehicle around to face the sunrise and look north to see the chickens and south to see the sharp-tails."). Easy enough!
I settled on the warm engine hood and waited with about 17-pounds of camera paraphernalia in my lap (As much personal gear as each Mormon was allowed on their 1400-mile cross-country migration through this region).
Two things were conspicuous. First, the dryness of the place. You can see it in the plants and feel it in the air and soil. Drought is the worst menace of the prairie and the potential is always there. Here you begin to enter the famous Sandhills region, the largest dune field in North America; 20,000 square miles of grassland spread across Nebraska and Kansas, just waiting for the right Dust Bowl conditions to become an American Sahara. Second, there was the stillness. No planes, cars or barking dogs - a peculiar, exhilarating feeling that takes a while to permeate through you.
Settlers were sometimes disturbed by this vastness and nauseating loneliness. William Quayle (1905) wrote, "Loneliness, thy other name, thy one true synonym, is prairie." Before long I realized, "This is the first weekend in months, that I won't be listening to another 8-hour lawn offensive by my neighbor's leaf blower."
At first I wasn't sure if I was imagining things or hearing the sound of a freshening breeze, but to my left they began to sound-off; a triple syllable whoom or boom - something you can imitate by blowing across the top of a jug. It was Tympanuchus cupido; to Linnaeus: having a drum and Cupid's little wings - a reference to the upright feathers on the dancing bird's neck.
John Madson describes the sound best in Where the Sky Began:
"Someone wrote that the prairie chicken's booming was of great comfort to the pioneer. I can't imagine why...by no measure is it a comforting, civilized sound. It is a lonely, wild sound made by a lonely, wild bird. It has the quality of an ancient wind blowing across the smoke flap of a wickiup...In all of modern America there is no more lost, plaintive, old-time sound than the booming of a native prairie chicken."
Well, it was of great comfort to me to finally be observing males patrolling their little territories, bowing, strutting and charging each other as the sunrise brightened the hilltop strutting arena. As the brightening daylight tinted the bluestem grass from reddish to yellow, I began to identify females passing between the males, stirring them to raise their tails and feather "horns", droop their wings and heads, inflate their orange neck sacks, and dance.
What a great show it is! The flamboyant performances on leks are legendary among behaviorists and bird watchers. Colonel N.S. Goss (1891) wrote of them:
"They run about much like our domestic fowls, but with a more stately carriage...the warmth of spring quickens their blood and awakes the passions of love; then, as with a view to fairness and the survival of the fittest, they select a smooth open courtship ground (usually called a 'scratching ground'), where the males assemble at the early dawn to vie with each other in courage and pompous display, uttering at the same time their love call, a loud booming noise...as soon as this is heard by the hen birds desirous of mating, they quickly put in an appearance....apparently indifferent observers, until claimed by victorious rivals."
I can see why they had such an impression on Native Americans, and why Lewis and Clark were compelled to send a live pair of these birds back to President Jefferson. It is the best show in town starring a creature that was also a significant food source to its audience because it could be harvested in huge numbers.
We learn in school about the great buffalo hunts by Indians and settlers, but these two-pound "chickens" were more than just a local staple. In 1873 almost three quarters of a million birds (in barrels of 500 birds each) were shipped by rail to Chicago, to be served in fine restaurants, as far away as Europe. It was written, "The flavor of the prairie chicken's flesh is as wild as its prairie flight." Gerald Horak wrote in 1975: "Prairie chickens probably contributed more to homesteaders than the buffalo ever did."
Not surprising, there was a price to pay for the over-harvesting by hunters and habitat alteration by the plow. As early as 1878, at least one writer was associating these activities with the scourges of grasshoppers that had earlier been feasted upon by prairie chicken fledglings.
To my right I became aware of
cooing, white flashes of tail feathers and some commotion as
another small group of birds began jousting at their lek like
fighting cocks. Pedioecetes (Prairie-inhabitant)
phasianellus (Pheasant) the sharp-tailed grouse,
has a display that seems more choreographed than the other species,
and when females appear, the males do a little synchronized shuffle.
Stomping and stopping in unison, they mark-time in little circles
on their territory, following some unspoken commands. I imagined
square dancers down at the Grange Hall obeying the caller to:
"droop those wings, stretch that neck, stamp your feet and
dance about!"
I'm embarrassed to admit my cultural ignorance, and that it wasn't until that very moment that it dawned on me what the celebrated "chicken dance" of the plains Indians is all about. In it, the human dancers honor the birds by imitation, right down to the bustle of tail feathers.
Dancing grouse and chickens are interesting in part because, in spite of all the excitement, not all of the males breed. On the lek, only the most vigorous individuals who have established and defended territories at the center (As few as 10 percent of the males each Spring) win the hearts of the ladies. I suppose in Darwinian terms, this gives the females a simple mechanism to quickly weed out those males that may need more conditioning or maturity. However, the success of these Lotharios of the lek is apparently short-lived, for only about half of the dominant males survive each year to return and defend their rightful spots at the center of the "scratching ground."
I measured the height of the rising sun with the spread of my hand - 15-degrees. The sun had been up an hour and I'd hardly taken a picture. My eyes caught new movement - a raptor gliding low over the grasses; harrier-like, but bigger....a ferruginous hawk - the giant of the plains; our largest hawk and my first sighting! John May (1935) described them as "prairie eagles" winnowing low over the ground with almost laborious movement.
It passed silently between the hills and was gone as quickly as it appeared. With it went the grouse and the chickens, and by breakfast-time, this birding adventure was over. Well, almost over. Leaving the area I slowed down to check out some movement near the roadside when I was ambushed by, of all things, a ringed-neck pheasant. In an uncanny act of bravado, a cock-bird rushed out and displayed to the car by puffing up and drumming his wings. Weird... Whether he was responding to his reflection in the shiny finish of the rental car, defending a territory or trying to out-perform his cousins, I'll never know.
Now it was off to Dannebrog (Immortalized in Roger Welsch's Postcards from Nebraska) for a real home-cooked country breakfast at Harriet's Danish Restaurant That is, if they were open ("Don't bother calling; we don't have a phone.").
The elusive prairie fowl mastered, my next objective was to head south to the Platte to find concentrations of cranes. To find the river it's only necessary to look across the plains for the "dam" trees. A term that sometimes crops up in descriptions of the riparian vegetation that has become established since the river was confined upstream to divert meltwater from Rocky Mountain snow packs for irrigation and hydropower. Three quarters of the water is now drawn from the Platte, at the expense of wetlands and the species that depend on them, and most of these wet meadows are now farmland. Now that the flow of the river is diminished, the invading bottomland forests of cottonwood and willow trees have significantly altered the habitat for beach nesting birds like piping plovers and least terns, helping to send them into decline. The narrowing of the river also has reduced the safe roosting buffer for cranes, which need wide stretches of 500-yards or more to rest at night. In 1886 the channel was referred to as "mile-wide" but by the 1990's was closer to the length of a football field. Overall, Nebraska has lost over 35% of its wetlands, but the figure in some important areas near the river and south of it may be closer to 90%.
The next morning I headed south for those trees - again with more specific directions from the locals: "Get out there before sunrise, the cranes wait until it warms up a bit before they fly. Head south and cross the river to Doniphan. It's a nice little town; you'll like it, but that's too far. Before you get there turn down the River road and go out by the Martin Brothers memorial." More signs indicated I was approaching the river:
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Icy Roads Possible" |
The weather was playing an April Fool's Trick this day. A front passed at night and the following morning it had dropped into the 20's, with wind chills near zero. ("It's nippy - you betcha'!" "Out on the prairie there's nothing between you and the Arctic Circle but a barbed wire fence - and that's broken.")
It is said of the plains: Don't set out... "in any season of the year without an overcoat, a fan, a lightning rod and an umbrella." I put on all my layers plus a liberated blanket from the motel, and feeling a bit like an Indian, headed out to the edge of grain fields along the rich bottomlands that hug the river.
I was cold and displeased by the change in the weather until I read the plaque at the memorial. In August, 1864, the Martin brothers, Nathanial (12) and Robert (15), fleeing a band of Sioux, were struck by arrows, one of which pinned them together on their horse (THAT'S gotta' hurt!). Left for dead, they actually lived until 79 and 47, respectively.
After reading this, I reasoned that I could endure a few hours outside, and settled down to wait for the cranes to fly out of their river roost - and to ponder the veracity of the tale of the misfortune of the Martin boys. In Son of the Morning Star - good reading about Custer's misfortunes out West, Evan Connell states that "Most plains Indians could put an arrow entirely through a buffalo...and one warrior bragged about killing three cows with a single arrow."
I was relieved to be exploring Nebraska in the 20th Century, and suddenly the conditions didn't seem so bad.
As the morning progressed, meadowlarks began to sound off with that clear, plaintive whistle of unusual sweetness. David Costello wrote: "If the gods were to choose a bird typical of the summer prairies they probably would designate the meadowlark." The eastern meadowlark can be found here in wet meadows, but most birds in the area are the more melodious western meadowlark. The way to differentiate the two is by their voice, since they are so similar in appearance.
Ernest Thompson describes this prairie lark "In richness of voice and modulation it equals or excels both the wood thrush and nightingale, and in the power and beauty of its articulation it has no superior in the whole world of feathered choristers with which I am acquainted."
In their short, gliding bursts of flight, both birds can be confused with the European starling; and coincidentally, the Cherokee Indian name for the bird is nakwisi which means star. The western was overlooked as a separate species by Lewis and Clark, and when it finally did attract the attention of Audubon, he dubbed it Sturnella neglecta (Sturnella - Starling-like - because of the star-like silhouette in flight, and neglecta - for obvious reasons.). The birds have made up for lost time however. In 1929 they were declared Nebraska's state bird - an honor shared in 5 other states.
The meadowlark has plenty of admirers,
including the Indians. Legend has it, the meadowlark's call taught
the Indians where to shoot an elk to kill it. And it is said
that a meadowlark warned Sitting Bull he would be assassinated
by his own people. General Custer, who wrote that he loved birds,
once altered the regimental line-of-march to avoid a meadowlark's
nest in the grass. (An odd statement from someone who, in the
era of "old time" naturalists and collectors, also
shot a white [whooping] crane simply to measure the spread of
its wings.)
The meadowlark's song reminds me of the lyrics Army mothers (Including my own.) used to sing their children to the melody of the first notes of Reveille (I hate to get up...I hate to get up... I hate to get up ...in the morning.) The meadowlark sometimes imitates the calls of other birds, and in that frigid meadow, as the early stages of hypothermia began to manifest themselves, I began to formulate one of my wacky theories about a connection here between Custer, the cavalry, meadowlarks and Reveille. Who wrote that tune anyway? Did an army bugler borrow it from the birds, like much of our early music and dance? Something to ponder on a bone-chilling day....
I was better acquainted with the next bird to sound off. A kingfisher was rattling in a tall tree; out of place, but bold and evidently agitated by my presence near its evening roost. Indians carried a mummified specimen of this outspoken bird in a pouch as a lucky charm, because neither arrows nor bullets intercept the kingfisher's darting flight, and the kingfisher is almost immune to predation. Their nesting burrow is dug deeper into a riverbank than my arm can reach and I've observed them willingly splash down into the water to avoid a stooping hawk.
In the distance I saw groups of large birds beginning to rise over the trees, and like distant fireworks, their muffled sounds took a moment to reach me. I was puzzled because some looked like geese, but it only took an instant to figure out what was happening. On cold days, airborne cranes tuck their long legs up against the belly to maintain warmth. Also, their wing beats are slower than geese and have a distinctive rapid upstroke.
Once I could hear them clearly, there was no disputing that these were cranes! It is an ancient, haunting and awe-inspiring call that, along with the howl of the wolf, evokes emotion like few other sounds in nature. Indeed, fossils of sandhill cranes are the oldest remains known from any living bird. They are a splendid link to the past.
George Gladden wrote, "The cry of the Sandhill Crane is a veritable voice of Nature, untamed and unterrified. It's uncanny quality is like that of the Loon...It's resonance is remarkable and its carrying power is increased by a distinct tremolo effect. Often for several minutes after the birds have vanished the unearthly sound drifts back to the listener, like a taunting trumpet from the underworld."
The Indian tribe that settlers called the Miami of Pennsylvania, were known to themselves as the Twightwee - onomatopoetic for the cry of the sandhill crane. Henry Collins called it "ringing trumpetings." Edwin Teale described it as a shrill, loud, far-carrying Gar-oo-oo-oo-a-a.
The Latin word for the Genus Grus, imitates the "grunt" or low guttural call of the cranes. Our English word crane comes via the Dutch kranny, the Celtic garan and the Greek geranos - the mythological Pygmy leader, Gerania, who fought with, and was transformed into, a crane. All of these names are somewhat imitative of the voice of cranes. We also get from it the plant name Geranium, that family whose fruits end in a long "beak or cranesbill."
I acquired a crane caller after a wildlife biologist on one of my trips pointed out, much to my surprise, that they are hunted in Texas and the Central Flyway, partly to appease the grain farmers. I speculated how they taste, awaiting the predictable "just-like-chicken" retort. To my astonishment, he responded enthusiastically, "Delicious! The best!"; and quoting other naturalists: Excellent for the table...Not strong like herons and other wading birds... "In the old days in Florida, William Bartram, the botanist, wrote that they make an excellent soup." I chose not to pursue the topic.
Although I keep it handy, I've yet to have an opportunity to use my caller on those rare cranes that irregularly pass through New Jersey in the fall migration. However, it certainly gets the attention of geese and birdwatchers.
Indian warriors fashioned whistles out of the eight-inch leg and wing bones of sandhill cranes, but not to lure birds. Strung around the neck, the wearer used it to summon his wyakin or guardian spirit in battle. Amid the whiz of arrows at the Little Big Horn, General Custer probably heard crane whistles (Payback for shooting white cranes out of curiosity?).
The cranes spread out in all directions, but in loosely organized groups. Most seemed to be heading for nearby fields and were not flying too much higher than the tree tops, but others appeared to be searching out thermals to gain altitude for the long trip North. The next leg of the great Spring migration appeared to be underway for much of the multitude, and by mid-April they all would be gone and the river would fall silent.
Much of our early knowledge about birds was gathered by observing these conspicuous creatures. Aristotle, writing in the 3rd Century BC, began to solve one of the earliest and greatest mysteries about the seasonal appearance of birds when he wrote:
"In some cases they migrate from near at hand; in others they may be said to come from the ends of the world, as in the case of the (Eurasian) crane, for these birds migrate from the steppes of Scythia to the marshlands south of Egypt, where the Nile has its source."
The cranes were wary of landing near me, so I headed for the best of bird blinds, the car. They gathered by the score in every open field, keeping a wary eye on farmers who were preparing the ground. It appears that any seed planting is delayed until the voracious cranes depart.
Being in the car was much more comfortable for me and the birds. As they spiraled overhead, jockeying for position in loose flocks, I tried to imagine which Greek letters mythology tells us were invented by ancient crane-watchers like Palamedes and Mercury.... gamma? epsilon? zeta? pi? Everything about cranes seems unique or exaggerated when compared to most other birds, and for me this was like bird watching for the first time. However it isn't until ithey're on the ground that the cranes make its biggest impression on you.
Each time a group landed, in fact at almost any moment, some birds would erupt in song and dance. "Their...antics at times are ludicrous in the extreme, bowing and leaping high in the air, hopping, skipping and circling about with drooping wings and croaking whoop, an almost indescribable dance and din...working themselves up into a fever of excitement only equaled by an Indian war dance." (N.S. Goss, History of the Birds of Kansas)
This behavior serves other purposes besides the obvious courtship ritual on the breeding grounds. Paired cranes sing duets - unison calls - to strengthen bonds, but there are also distinctive flight calls and location calls to advertise good feeding areas; and of course, warning calls. Some actions are non-verbal threats to maintain the crane's equivalent of personal space, and rather than directing a low-blow to a trespasser, as humans might, the crane may instead direct a low-bow - stretching down to expose the red cap on it's head - to send warnings. They also spar with their bill and leap in the air to kick at their opponent, but generally this is a non-contact sport to release tension in the flock.
Some actions may be training for juveniles. Often they will toss corn cobs and sticks into the air. Some crane watchers have speculated this is training for killing snakes and other prey, as well as displaying to other birds, but if you watch individuals away from the group, it's easy to imagine that sometimes, it's just plain fun.
There are many places to watch cranes along the river loop between Kearney and Grand Island, and although I wasn't tiring of watching them, I headed for Crane Meadows Nature Center for some background on the birds and other points of interest around Grand Island. I had a number of questions about what I was seeing, especially the size differences between the cranes ("There are greater, lesser and intermediate races of sandhills and local populations out west, in Florida and in Mississippi. The lesser migrates the farthest, all the way to Siberia; 7,000 miles a year.") Also, I repeatedly saw several partial albinos in the same locations ("An important clue that they may be loyal to some sites during migration, and an important feature to consider when you talk about habitat protection.").
Besides hunting and the insidious backdrop of habitat loss, there are other human threats that inadvertently affect the cranes. Prior to my visit, a sudden, late season blizzard drove the birds back to the river roosts, and in the blinding snow, hundreds were killed after colliding with telephone wires.
"Have you come to see THE crane?", asked the naturalist. THE crane turned out to be a Eurasian or common; Europe's only crane and the tenth North American sighting. It is the nearest relative to our whooping crane.
Nebraska is way off course on the route between the steppes of Scythia and the marshlands south of Egypt. Is this bird a trail-blazing explorer from the Old World; or retracing ancient paths; or did it simply get swept up in the wrong flock of lesser sandhills across the Bering Straits? At what point in that great journey, amid the clamoring of a thousand sandhill cranes, did this bird say to itself, "Something just isn't right here."
There are a number of night roosts along the river where the gregarious cranes gather in groups of 15, 000 or more. On my last afternoon in Grand Island, I staked out a place near one of the bridges to wait for the birds to come in for the night. Settlers described these western rivers as too thin to plow and too thick to drink and a mile wide and an inch deep. The water was cold and silty, but so shallow that I could see large fish swimming hard against the current. Could these be the ubiquitous white sucker Catostomus commersonni suckleyi(!); the "typical prairie-water fish" I had been reading about? A beaver appeared from nowhere, worked its way upstream towards the islands of sandbar willows, then disappeared with a slap of its tail when an eagle glided over the river.
About the time I was beginning to worry I had chosen the wrong location to watch the birds come in for the night, they began to arrive - pick-up trucks, rental cars and out-of-state vehicles. "Oh yes, you are in the right place. They'll fly in just before sunset!" Crane watching is irresistible to locals and visitors.
The squawks of a few ducks and red-winged blackbirds staking out their territories had begun to die down when cranes began flying in from the fields. This was what I had wanted to experience before I left the Platte, the great river chorus of cranes. Many distinct voices can be heard including the higher pitched juveniles, and the force of it is overwhelming to the senses.
Rather than attempt to describe the sound and its impact on the sentimental spectators at the bridge, I will defer to Thomas Nuttal's description of whooping cranes on the Mississippi in 1834, when both species were much more abundant:
"The whole continent seemed as if giving up its quota of the species to swell the mighty host...The clangor of these numerous legions passing high in the air seemed almost deafening; the confused cry of the vast army continued...nearly throughout the whole night without intermission."
Satisfied that I had experienced the best remnants of wilderness that the land of flat water still has to offer, it was time to leave the peacefulness of the Platte and clamor of the cranes, and head home to the clamor of leaf blowers and car horns.
"Our appreciation of the crane grows with the slow
unraveling of earthly history. His tribe, we now know, stems
out of the remote Eocene. The other members of the fauna in which
he originated are long since entombed with the hills. When we
hear his call we hear no mere bird. He is a symbol of our untamable
past." (Aldo Leopold)
For more information on Nebraska and birds:
Alfred Bailey. Birds of Colorado
Lauren Brown. Grasslands
Frank Chapman. Handbook of Birds of Eastern North America
N. S. Goss . History of the Birds of Kansas
Steve Grooms. The Cry of the Sandhill Crane
William Least Heat-Moon. Prairy Erth
Paul Johnsgard. Crane Music
Gary Lingle. Birding Crane River
Ernest Thompson. The Birds of Manitoba