Restless Cranes Grow Fat on the Platte Sandhill cranes Sandhill cranes dancing. Photo Stephen J. Lang for The Wisconsin Society for Ornithology Have you noticed that days are getting noticeably longer? Sandhill cranes have! They are some of the first birds to feel a surge of spring restlessness. By Valentine's Day, migrants that had wintered in New Mexico and other southern areas appear along the Platte River in Nebraska. The Lillian Annette Rowe Sanctuary in Gibbon, Nebraska, is a great place to view cranes up close and personal as they awaken at first light and as they come down to the river for the night. In this critical resting place, each pair spends three or four weeks building up body fat and hormones before completing their long migration and starting to nest. Some of them will migrate through central Nebraska, fly up to far northwestern Alaska, and cross the Bering Strait into Siberia! The fat they put on in Nebraska is the fuel that will power their flight over those long miles. After a day of pigging out on the leftovers from last year's corn harvest in fields and meadows, they retreat to the river every evening to sleep standing close together in shallow water and on the sandbars. The river is shallow enough for them to stand in while deep enough to discourage most predators. About 500,000 cranes descend on this short stretch of the Platte River between Lexington and Chapman, Nebraska every spring. They account for about 80-90% of all the Sandhill Cranes in the mid-continent population. Some leave before others arrive, and the peak number present at one time is about 350,000. So many cranes in a small area makes for terrific crane watching! High Wires and Other Hazards Journey North's Laura Erickson visited Nebraska to observe the crane migration in early March 1996 and won't forget what she saw. Below-zero temperatures, high winds, and huge chunks of ice in the river made conditions very dangerous for the cranes. Worst of all, biologists had found at least 17 dead cranes under the power lines that cross the river in several places. For some reason, birds have a very difficult time seeing wires, and with the high winds were having problems enough controlling their flight. In year 2000, people at the Rowe Sanctuary started to put special little devices called Bird Flight Diverters (BFDs) on the power line wires. BFDs are small, simple coils, but when placed every 2 meters along a wire they help the cranes to notice the wires before bonking into them. The BFDs are inexpensive, but the Sanctuary needed to raise thousands of dollars because power company crews had to use a lot of equipment and people to attach them on the wires. Try This! Journaling Question Why do you think cranes have difficulties seeing wires? How do you think little coils help solve the problem?   Copyright 2004 Journey North. All Rights Reserved. Please send all questions, comments, and suggestions to our feedback form