Counting Cranes

Have you seen the Sandhills yet this spring? Or more likely, have you heard them and their tell-tale tremolo? Few animals signal the change of seasons more decisively than these graceful birds. One day I counted 260 in four different flocks heading northwest over River Forest. They were probably moving up from the wildlife preserves in Jasper and Pulaski Counties over in northwest Indiana. In the fall, they count the Indiana Sandhills in the tens of thousands. On Nebraska’s Platte River in the spring, they count them in the hundreds of thousands! Watch this video about counting one of the largest animal migrations on earth – a legacy of the great American Serengeti that still moves through our skies.