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The Annual Crane Migration to the Platte River |  |
Watch the Perspective:RealPlayer | QuickTime |
Reported for Statewide by Brad
Penner.
"It's a little bit
overwhelming at first. I think especially with the sounds that they make.
I mean, when the large numbers of them take off in the morning, the sound
is just sort of all encompassing, you know, just completely surrounds you."
"I think I have met people all around the country who
are fanatical about cranes. I don't know what it is about this bird besides
the fact that they're just fun to watch, that makes people so dang interested
in them."
"Looks just like a cloud. I'd seen it when they'd be
strung out for a half mile or so and 30 yards deep. It would be awesome."
What you're going to see here today in simplest terms is the
largest concentration of sandhill cranes in the world in this stretch of the
Platte River.
On an exceptionally warm evening in early March, Paul Tebbel
of the Audubon Society's
Rowe Sanctuary explains what this group of crane watchers will see.
So what they're going to do is come over to the river and
roost here all night and leave. So it's the concentration of these cranes
coming to the river that brings people to the Platte to see this whole thing.
Phil Cafaro and Kris Bronars have heard this before. This
would be their fourth trip to the blind in two days. They came from Fort Collins,
Colorado. They had read about the crane migration and some friends told them
they should go.
[Kris] "We did get specific encouragement from
people who made the trip themselves."
[Phil] "People
in Nebraska might not realize that the cranes here are world famous. People
all around the country and beyond know about them.
"We actually had them landing in the river and coming
over in large bunches about this time yesterday. It's about ready to get going."
At the Rowe Sanctuary near Kearney, you can watch the cranes
from blinds right on the Platte River. In the evening they fly in from surrounding
fields where they have spent the day eating. They spend the night in the river
channel where the water protects them from predators. In the morning visitors
go to the blinds well before dawn.
[Kris] "I would actually recommend going in the
morning. First because in the morning you come in and it's completely dark
and you can't see the birds at all but you can hear them and you know they're
out there but you're not quite sure exactly where or how many of them there
are or what exactly they look like. And then it stpers getting lighter and
you start being able to make out their shapes and then it gets lighter and
lighter and they start to lift off and take off for the fields."
[Phil] "You start to realize how many of them
there are. You don't really understand that and you keep seeing raft upon
raft of cranes. It's incredible."
This is the magnet that draws thousands of people to the central
Platte Valley every year. 
[Roger Jasnoch, Kearney Chamber of Commerce] "Because
for that six-week period, we are a national, international destination. We
wish we could get the cranes to stay here a little longer but that's not going
to happen, I don't believe.
"People start calling to ask about the cranes in December.
The cranes usually begin to arrive in February. So the peak time would be
any time the last three weeks in March.
By the time the cranes and crane watchers leave in early April,
they have left quite an impression on the local economy.
[Jasnoch] "It's really difficult to get a handle
on that. Specifically Kearney, we probably book maybe 2,500, 3,000 room nights
in properties specifically for the cranes."
Three years ago, the Crane Meadows Nature Center moved into
this former truck stop near Grand Island. The location next to the interstate
makes it a perfect place for crane watchers to stop.
[Larry Keller, Crane Meadows] "That has changed
us slightly as a nature center from strictly an educational institution to
also one that focuses on tourism."
Some stop in for a souvenir. Others want advice about roadside
crane viewing. Crane Meadows also takes visitors to its blinds in the morning
and evening. Last year 22,000 people visited the nature center, and Keller
estimates that about 15,000 of those guests came during crane season.
[Keller] "It's hard to count because sometimes
it gets real busy that we don't have a real accurate method of counting all
those visitors."
Crane Meadows is planning a $2 million expansion and improvement
project. A foot bridge will be built to allow better access to the river and
a network of hiking trails. The current building will be remodeled and a new
educational center will be built.
[Keller] "There's a lot to learn and a lot to
see in native Nebraska. That has brought on the tourism."
Tourism that is leading the Rowe Sanctuary to take on its
own building project, a replacement for the old farmhouse that serves as headquarters.
[Tebbel] "We
get overwhelmed. We had 900 people come through here in one weekend last year."
People like Phil Cafaro and Kris Bronars, people who find
other things to do besides watch the cranes.
[Phil] "We have been staying in Minden. We went
down to..."
[Kris] "The Hastings Museum today."
[Phil] "A wonderful museum. So we're spending
a couple hundred dollars with meals and being here and driving around and
doing different things."
[Tebbel] "That's really what we wanted to do so
they're here longer. They spend more money, but we don't necessarily have
more people."
That's important to Paul Tebbel because he knows if you aren't
careful, you could kill the crane that laid the golden egg.
[Tebbel] "And even though I've got the most blind
space here on the river and I'm always adding it on, I'm unwilling to compromise
the cranes' safety and the reason that they're here on behalf of a tourist.
I can't do that. But I can take care of a lot of people here as long as I
do it carefully." 
Seeing the cranes glide through the air, hearing their haunting
cries, observing secretly as they begin a new day are all experiences that
overwhelm a first time visitor.
[Harold Johnson] "Oh, I think this is wonderful.
I think everybody ought to see it."
This is the first time Harold Johnson has seen the crane migration
in Nebraska. When he was growing up in Colorado, he saw them a few times.
[Harold] "They'd come over the schoolhouse and
I knew where they was going to go, so I would get my horse out and away I
would go and I'd always be late for supper. Get a little reprimand."
That was ok, though, huh?
[Harold] "Oh, yeah."
Those cranes made an impression that stuck with him, an impression
so strong that he told his daughter he wanted to see the cranes one more time.
[Harold] "I told them I said we better go pretty
soon because I ain't going to be able to go some day. I'm 80 years old. So
they said well, we better go."
For some, the sandhill cranes are just a bunch of big, gray
birds that hang around for a few weeks every year. That is true, but there
are plenty of folks who think there is something special about the way those
birds hang around, folks like Phil and Kris who plan to come back. They might
bring Phil's parents along, too.
For more information
on the Platte River click here.
Captioning by Nebraska Captioning Center, Lincoln,
Nebraska .