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Sandhill Cranes Spread Their Wings, Rest a Spell in US Midwest

by Mike Kilen

   GIBBON, NEBRASKA --

   One of the world's greatest migrations pauses every March in one humble
   place, central Nebraska's flat landscape full of cornfields, located in
   the middle of the United States.

   While people may fly over or drive through the area at high speeds on
   Interstate Highway 80, sandhill cranes stop to appreciate the adjacent
   wide, braided channels of the shallow Platte River to roost and feed.

   Last year, a record 1 million of the lanky, playful birds -- about 85
   percent of the world's population -- stopped on their northward
   migration.

   In recent decades, more visitors have discovered the migration, looking
   up from car windshields as wave after wave of cranes fill the sky for
   six or more weeks, or crowd into river blinds -- a structure that
   allows bird watchers to remain hidden while peering through camera
   lenses and binoculars in awe.

   Scientists here say there is only one other migration as concentrated
   and spectacular in the world: the wildebeest migration in Africa.