Sandhill Cranes

Set Your Clock By Mother Natures TIme Zone The opportunity to view wildlife is available in modest settings. A small town surrounded by modern highways, Gibbon Nebraska and neighbouring towns seem odd places for entertainment. But hours of enjoyment can be found in this area every spring. Around March, the largest concentration of sandhill cranes in the world crowds into this stretch of the Platte River. "They" come here during their annual migration. "One crane, all by itself, makes the world wild. What bird can match its dignity and calm deliberation, so powerfully matched with its thrilling call and the ecstatic abandon of its mating dances?" Crane dances? They bob, throw their heads back and trumpet, throw grass, stones and feathers into the air, leap up and parachute back down on their broad wings. The crane dance is not only associated with mating behaviour - cranes seem to jump for joy! The sunsets along the Platte are always glorious. Include the arrival of the Sandhill Cranes and you have a breath tsking, awe inspiring spectacle. Stay long enough and the evening sky turns the colour of steel while the calls of the Cranes echo across the rivers sandbars. Connected with water and the end of the growing season, symbols of migratory fowl like Sand hill Cranes are commonly used in pottery and petrography in various Indian cultures.