Flight of the Sandhill Cranes

by Elizabeth Winter

Title

Flight of the Sandhill Cranes

Artist

Elizabeth Winter

Medium

Photograph - Photography

Description

Witnessing the gathering of half a million cranes under a blazon Nebraska sunset stirs our senses and sparks our imagination like few experiences can. What better way to rejuvenate your spirit than with the sights and sounds of such a spectacle with a cold March wind slapping your cheeks? "Why do they stage here along the Platte?", "Where are they going", and "Where do they come from?" are but a few of the many questions visitors ask.

Cranes are among the oldest living birds on the planet. Fossil records place Sandhill Cranes in Nebraska more than nine million years ago, long before there was a Platte River, which, by comparison, is only a youthful 10,000 years of age. The landscape then was savanna-like and its inhabitants were more like that of modern East Africa; varieties of rhinos, camels, and elephants long since extinct. Yet cranes survived and watched as American bison, pronghorn, and wapiti evolved on the prairies. Humans now dominate the landscape having replaced the bison with cattle and the prairie with corn and concrete. This startling transition occurred in less than 150 years, a mere blink of an eye in geologic time!

Uploaded

January 18th, 2015

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