On my trip back to Colorado, today, I observed a flock of migrating sandhill cranes in western Kansas. Heading for their staging grounds along the Platte River of central Nebraska, they were no doubt taking advantage of southeast winds ahead of the approaching Pacific storm.
After wintering in Mexico, Texas, and New Mexico, the cranes begin heading toward Nebraska in mid-late February, covering up to 500 miles a day. The Platte River Valley is their major staging area before moving on to Canada, Alaska and Siberia. Over half a million sandhills inhabit the Valley during the month of March, roosting in the River shallows and feeding on adjacent fields. Corn is their primary food but they also consume tubers, worms, insects and other invertebrates.
By the second week in April, most will depart for breeding grounds to the north. Lesser sandhill cranes, which make up 80% of the Platte River population, will summer in the Arctic, favoring the tundra of northernmost Canada, Alaska's North Slope and northeastern Siberia. Greater sandhills nest from northern Minnesota into Manitoba while Canadian sandhills (intermediate in size) breed across the mid latitudes of Canada.
