Every spring, the sandhill cranes fly en masse from the Texas coast to Canada, Alaska and extreme eastern Siberia. A map of the migration looks like a lopsided hourglass with the narrows in central Nebraska. Fed by day with leftover field corn from the previous autumn’s harvest, these cranes congregate by night in an amazing roost, a loud avian city of millions of primordial cries, crammed into one roughly 60 mile stretch of the Platte River. On this crisp, moist March morning, the rising red sun and the waking stir of many thousands of nearby cranes brought to mind the opening scene of The Lion King, whose introductory music plays in my head whenever I look back at these shots.
6 W Doniphan NE (23 Mar 7) Looking E
40.772, -98.4926Sandhill Crane Sunrise 1
Every spring, the sandhill cranes fly en masse from the Texas coast to Canada, Alaska and extreme eastern Siberia. A map of the migration looks like a lopsided hourglass with the narrows in central Nebraska. Fed by day with leftover field corn from the previous autumn’s harvest, these cranes congregate by night in an amazing roost, a loud avian city of millions of primordial cries, crammed into one roughly 60 mile stretch of the Platte River. On this crisp, moist March morning, the rising red sun and the waking stir of many thousands of nearby cranes brought to mind the opening scene of The Lion King, whose introductory music plays in my head whenever I look back at these shots.
6 W Doniphan NE (23 Mar 7) Looking E
40.772, -98.4926