Sand Hill Cranes at Sunrise

One of the most unforgettable sights is to watch large grey birds migrate through a small area of the mid-west by the hundreds of thousands. That is the Sand Hill Crane. They bred in the most northern part of North America and even northeastern Siberia. They migrate south to warmer climate like Texas, Mexico , and Florida. Migrating north when this picture was taken nearly 800,000 Sandhill Cranes rested  around the Platte River in Nebraska. They draw your attention with their trumpeting  sound which is unique to these cranes. They fill the shallow of the river and then the sky when they flock to the nearby harvested corn fields. In the fields they dance by stretching their wings, pumping their heads, and leaping into the air. The cranes can be 3 to 5 feet tall, weigh 9 or 10 pounds, and have a wing span of 5.5 feet to 7.7 feet. The unforgettable part is when 10’s of thousands rise up from the river in the morning to fly to a nearby corn field in the fog as in this photo.