Volden said last week those numbers were close to 150,000 or even double that. The mass arrival came at about the right time. The cranes traditionally arrive around Valentine's Day. The numbers peak around mid- to late March and stay until about April 20. More than 500,000 Sandhill cranes stop along an 80-mile stretch of the Platte River between Grand Island and Kearney to feed in nearby cornfields and rest in the shallow waters before continuing their long journey north to Canada, Alaska and Siberia, where they will nest and hatch young.
South winds bring cranes.
Unusually dry weather this winter has heightened concerns of avian cholera and other diseases spreading from geese and other waterfowl to the cranes. In normal years, snow geese and Canada geese stay away from the river and congregate in wetlands in the vast Rainwater Basin. But this year, lack of rainfall has dried up those wetlands and forced thousands of geese to come to the Platte River. However, I hope the flowing water of the Platte River would lessen or negate the chances of that happening. In addition to geese and ducks, the handful of whooping cranes that stops in the Rainwater Basin each April also use the wetlands, which have extremely dry, Rainwater Basin Coordinator Steve Moran said.