Many of my favorite travel memories involve wildlife. A beautiful cathedral is going to look pretty much the same when you visit it in 2013 as it did when you visited it in 2003, or even when your grandparents visited it in 1953. Animals, however, being active living things, can show you something different every time you see them, which is what makes seeing them so special. And that is why the Platte River in Nebraska is a place I'd like to come back and visit many more times in my life.
The Platte River is a lot like a crane 7-Eleven.
National Geographic has called the sandhill crane migration one of the greatest wildlife phenomena in North America, and I couldn't agree more. Every spring, after spending the winter in warmer areas like Texas and New Mexico, sandhill cranes undertake a long migration north to Canada, where they will breed and raise their chicks. This is a long, exhausting journey to do all at once, so along the way they find a nice rest area to stop at so they can refuel, and Nebraska's Platte River is an ideal place for them. The river contains many small islands and sandbars, which make for a nice safe place to roost for the night, and the surrounding fields are full of insects and discarded grains to eat. The cranes stop here for a few weeks to rest and fatten up for the remainder of their long journey north.
The greatest concentration of cranes can be found in the 50-mile stretch of river between Grand Island and Kearney, Nebraska. Hundreds of thousands of sandhill cranes descend on the area each year between the beginning of March and mid April. They also pass through the area during their fall southward migration, but they don't stay nearly as long in the fall as they do in the spring, so your best bet is visiting in the spring. I visited in mid March.
The greatest concentration of cranes can be found in the 50-mile stretch of river between Grand Island and Kearney, Nebraska. Hundreds of thousands of sandhill cranes descend on the area each year between the beginning of March and mid April. They also pass through the area during their fall southward migration, but they don't stay nearly as long in the fall as they do in the spring, so your best bet is visiting in the spring. I visited in mid March.
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