For my birthday last December, my parents gifted Sev and I an overnight stay at one of the Rowe Sanctuary photography blinds right in the peak of the annual Sandhill crane migration at the end of March. What a truly awesome experience it was. We stayed right along the Platte River just steps from where the cranes come in to roost at night while they fuel up for the long journey from Central America to Canada. This migration as happened for thousands of years and although I grew up right in the middle of it in Kearney, Nebraska, I never got to experience seeing the migration quite like this. They arrive right at dusk to spend the night on the sandbars in the middle of the river which protects them from predators. Then in the morning, as if on cue, they take off as a group. The sight and sound of tens of thousands of birds flying past you is simply incredible.
Sev and I both agree, even if we hadn’t taken a single photo, just being there would have been a cool experience. Without electricity, running water or heat, the adventure felt a bit like camping (minus a bonfire and add thousands of cranes making noise throughout the night). We were lucky enough to have unseasonably warm weather, but the cloudy night blocked our view of the full moon. We still managed to get some amazing pictures that evening and the following morning.
For more information on the Sandhill Crane migration and Rowe Sanctuary, visit http://rowe.audubon.org/.
