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| sandhill cranes in flight |
The first full day of Migration of the Sandhill Cranes: A World-Class Experience continued with brunch at The Egg & I in Kearney. We ate there 3 times and we all liked it (can’t say that about some of the other places where we stopped to eat.) Brunch was followed by a lecture on crane behavior given by Keanna Leonard, the education director at Rowe Sanctuary. We learned about the migration patterns of the cranes and about some of their behaviors - unison calls, dancing, crouch threat.
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| sedge of sandhill cranes |
We also saw a nest garter snakes in front of the Nature Center at Rowe. Several of us spent some time photographing them.
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| garter snakes in the grass |
We spent a lot of time on the van driving to various locations to look at the sandhill cranes. The cranes spend the day foraging in cornfields. They eat corn left from the previous harvest and insects/grubs that they find in the dirt.
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| sandhill cranes in Nebraska corn field (taken through van window) |
The heat was record breaking that day - even the cranes seemed to be subdued by the temperatures in the 80’s! We weren’t seeing many of the behaviors that we were watching for, but we saw hundreds/thousands of cranes.
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| sandhill cranes in the heat of the afternoon |
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| tourists come from all over to see the cranes ~ sometimes you have to remind folks to respect wildlife |
CRANE TRIVIA ~ a young sandhill crane is called a colt.
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| we were watching for crane behaviors ~ looks like one of them is dancing |
March 2015
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