Latest / NaturallyScott / E79 Naturally Scott Adventures – Sandhill Cranes: A Million Birds on the Platte

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E79 Naturally Scott Adventures – Sandhill Cranes: A Million Birds on the Platte · NaturallyScott

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_01: Hello and welcome to Naturally Scott.
• 0:02
  SPEAKER_01: I'm your host, Scott Harris, and today we're doing what we call a Naturally Scott Adventures, where we uh we do a 20-30 minute podcast uh without a guest, uh, unless you count the animals.
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_01: And so um it's various trips that I take to places around the country, around the world.
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_01: And today I'll be taking you to Nebraska.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_01: I will grant you Nebraska is not known as a hot spot for uh wildlife uh for mammals or birds, which are the two things that I normally cover, but there is an exception, and it's a huge exception, and that is in March, and that is along the Platte River, because if you go to Nebraska to the Platte River in March, you are going to see sandhill cranes.
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_01: Now, you can see sandhill cranes at a lot of different places around the country, no doubt.
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and you know, I've been fortunate enough to see them in, I don't know, eight or ten different states, I imagine.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but nothing like what takes place on the plat.
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_01: There are roughly a million or so sandhill cranes.
• 1:09
  SPEAKER_01: Um, estimates vary, but we're just going to call it a million and say that's good, um, that exists.
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_01: And um roughly 80% of those will visit the plat during migration.
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_01: Now, the plat is this amazing bottleneck, if you will.
• 1:25
  SPEAKER_01: It's the pitch point of an hourglass.
• 1:27
  SPEAKER_01: So you've got these birds coming up from the south, and they're heading north, migrating north so that they can breed.
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_01: And they spread out when they're up there.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, they go up into the boreal forests and uh into Siberia, um, and so they're traveling quite a ways.
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_01: But they're fascinating birds, and it is a spectacular sight to see.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_01: They're an ancient bird.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, fossils are found in Florida.
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_01: Those are the oldest ones, and they are between two and two and a half million years old, long before we were ever here.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_01: There were no bipeds.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, this was uh this was birds, but sandhill cranes were there.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_01: And they're huge birds.
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_01: Um, if you haven't seen one up close, uh they are massive birds.
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_01: They can get up to about four feet tall, up to oh, eleven pounds for the big ones, seven, eight pounds uh on up to 11 pounds, and a wingspan of over six and a half feet, um, which is just it's an NBA player.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_01: That is how big their wingspan is.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_01: And one of the neat things about sandhill cranes is they look even bigger when they're in flight, because they extend their necks when they're flying.
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_01: They are full out there, unlike let's say a great blue heron, which is a good sized bird, but it tucks its neck when it flies.
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_01: So it's really fun to watch sandhill cranes.
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_01: Um now, we're getting them.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_01: This is on their northward migration.
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_01: They take a little different path going southward, and they're more spread out.
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_01: So in the fall, we don't get this huge collection.
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but in the spring, we do, and it's in Nebraska and it's on the plat.
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_01: Now, worldwide, there are 15 crane species, uh, which is a really neat deal.
• 3:15
  SPEAKER_01: And the worldwide expert on cranes is a gentleman named George Archibald.
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_01: Um, he runs the International Crane Foundation in uh Minnesota.
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_01: Fascinating man.
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_01: I got to spend a few days with him uh this past March in Nebraska.
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_01: He was there uh for the same reason that I was, uh, which is to see the cranes.
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_01: And it was uh really neat.
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_01: Um we would get up in the morning, have breakfast together, have dinner together, maybe go watch the cranes together, and just talk.
• 3:44
  SPEAKER_01: Not just about cranes, but a lot of things.
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_01: And if you get a chance to visit the International Crane Foundation or to read George's book, uh, take that opportunity.
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_01: Again, George Archibald International Crane Foundation.
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_01: Now, everyone takes a different approach to seeing these birds.
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_01: And um, I'm gonna tell you what mine was uh for regular listeners.
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_01: Some of it won't surprise you because it starts early, which is my favorite thing to do when I'm out there.
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_01: So when you're in Nebraska and it's March, first light is generally around 7:30 in the morning.
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_01: Sunrise is normally around eight o'clock.
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_01: So those are kind of your trigger points.
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_01: That's when the activity begins to start.
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_01: I like to arrive around 6 o'clock.
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_01: It's pitch black, and you get there and you settle in.
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_01: If you have an opportunity, there's an Audubon center there, and then there's the Crane Trust.
• 4:33
  SPEAKER_01: And I was fortunate enough to be a guest of uh Bryce Crow and the Crane Trust.
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_01: So that's where I hung out most of the time, was in a variety of their blinds.
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but you get there, or I get there around six o'clock.
• 4:47
  SPEAKER_01: It's cold in Nebraska in March.
• 4:49
  SPEAKER_01: You got to dress warm, and you're out looking at the Platte River, which is very shallow.
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_01: And the cranes like the shallow channels.
• 4:57
  SPEAKER_01: That's what they're looking for.
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_01: Um, they can stand in them, they've got long legs, and they stand in those, and it offers them protection from the coyotes and the bobcats that are patrolling um the banks of the Platte looking for you know injured or sick sandhill cranes or cranes that make a mistake and get too close to shore.
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_01: But in general, they don't.
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_01: So you get there, it's pitch black.
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_01: Um, the week that I was there, it was a lot of fog, which was really cool.
• 5:29
  SPEAKER_01: You got to watch the fog slowly lift.
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_01: It was a drawback a bit on the photography, um, but it was worth it just because it added kind of a mystical feeling to getting to see these birds.
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_01: Now, unlike snow geese, which, as far as I can tell, are non-stop talkers.
• 5:47
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, 24 hours a day, they're just chattering away and they're loud and and uh and they're congregating at the same time.
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_01: We'll talk about them a little more later in the podcast.
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_01: But the sandhill cranes can be quiet.
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_01: They're quiet during the night.
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_01: But in the morning, as they kind of start to wake up in what humans might call the coffee time, there's some gentle murmuring going on, a little bit of noise.
• 6:12
  SPEAKER_01: Now, this is tied with the fog starting to lift and the sun starting to come out a little bit.
• 6:18
  SPEAKER_01: So there's a lot of stuff going on that you get to that you get to watch.
• 6:23
  SPEAKER_01: You can either, of course, sit and watch it or you can photograph it.
• 6:27
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but either way, it's great.
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_01: And suddenly that murmuring, not suddenly, over a period of minutes or half hour, it it it gets a little louder.
• 6:35
  SPEAKER_01: Turns it has a bugling quality to it, if you will.
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_01: Um a little bit like elk.
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_01: And and so you start to get this sound, and it's got a prehistoric sound, which ties very well back with the, you know, them being two and a half million years old.
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_01: The call that they make is deep and it's resonant.
• 6:56
  SPEAKER_01: It's a it's a vibratory sound, if you would.
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_01: It can carry for miles.
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_01: Um, it can go a long way.
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_01: It's a it's a huge sound.
• 7:04
  SPEAKER_01: Now, part of that is because a sandhill crane has a windpipe that is extraordinarily long.
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_01: It actually coils inside the sternum, it's so long.
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_01: And so from that, it generates this deep, powerful, rich, resonant sound, um, and it starts to pick up speed.
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_01: Sandhill cranes are very communal, and so you're looking out on whatever area you've picked.
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_01: Now, sandhill cranes, it's maybe a 10 or 15 mile stretch of the plat where they're settling in for the night.
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_01: So even though there might be, let's say, 500,000 sandhill cranes at one time um uh scattered over that 10 or 15 miles, you're not seeing all of those birds at once.
• 7:49
  SPEAKER_01: So normally you're seeing 50,000, 60,000, 70,000 birds.
• 7:55
  SPEAKER_01: But suddenly these birds are making noise and they're starting to move, they're starting to get active.
• 8:01
  SPEAKER_01: There's thousands of them, and then tens of thousands.
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_01: And overall, there's hundreds of thousands, but where where you're looking specifically, it's maybe tens of thousands.
• 8:11
  SPEAKER_01: Now they start to do something really cool.
• 8:13
  SPEAKER_01: You got this four-foot-tall bird.
• 8:15
  SPEAKER_01: It's a pretty tall bird, right?
• 8:17
  SPEAKER_01: They start jumping, they just start bouncing like they're on a trampoline.
• 8:21
  SPEAKER_01: They're bouncing up and down, and and they're testing their wings a little bit, and they're spreading their wings, and now the movement looks like a wave, it's just got this this fluid feeling to it.
• 8:33
  SPEAKER_01: Everywhere you look, there are thousands of same little commands jumping.
• 8:38
  SPEAKER_01: They're not taking to the air yet, they're just jumping.
• 8:41
  SPEAKER_01: And it's really, really cool to watch.
• 8:44
  SPEAKER_01: Now, going on around them is you start to see maybe some white-tailed deer come on down to the to the river in the morning, and they're coming down to drink, and there's some young ones and they're playing.
• 8:57
  SPEAKER_01: The biggest group I saw, I think, was nine that were in the river at one time.
• 9:01
  SPEAKER_01: So that was just spectacular to see and uh really, really enjoyable.
• 9:06
  SPEAKER_01: I love watching white tear, white-tailed deer, and you get the bald eagle patrolling the outskirts.
• 9:11
  SPEAKER_01: Now they're looking to flush uh some of these sandhill cranes, and they're looking for one that's old or weak or tired or sick or injured, whatever it is that sets it apart from all the other sandhill cranes, so they can go in and have a huge breakfast.
• 9:28
  SPEAKER_01: Because these are big birds for a bald eagle to take out.
• 9:32
  SPEAKER_01: An adult bald eagle, you look at it maybe 13 pounds, females are the largest, and that's about where they cap out.
• 9:39
  SPEAKER_01: And so if they're if they're tackling a bird that's nine or ten pounds, that's a big bird for them to go after.
• 9:46
  SPEAKER_01: And then all of a sudden, you'll get this collection of birds, and they start to take to the air in these groups.
• 9:53
  SPEAKER_01: And um, if you've seen my Snow Goose Adventures uh podcast, it's similar to that.
• 9:58
  SPEAKER_01: They don't all take off simultaneously, but they take off in groups and they take to the sky and they decide where they're gonna go.
• 10:06
  SPEAKER_01: And again, they're going out to fields all over, 360 degrees of fields, and over a period of minutes, maybe a half hour, they're up and gone.
• 10:17
  SPEAKER_01: And then suddenly you're left with silence and an ep and an empty river.
• 10:22
  SPEAKER_01: And it's a little bit sad.
• 10:25
  SPEAKER_01: On the other hand, it's stunning and beautiful to imagine the birds that were just there.
• 10:30
  SPEAKER_01: It's a great chance to reflect on the birds.
• 10:33
  SPEAKER_01: Now, they're gone all day in the fields.
• 10:36
  SPEAKER_01: There's virtually unlimited food out here in this in the Nebraska farmlands, if you can imagine.
• 10:42
  SPEAKER_01: And so the birds are just gone and they spread out in groups large and small.
• 10:47
  SPEAKER_01: Some of these fields have been have been mowed down and plowed, and so you can see the bird standing there all the way down to its feet.
• 10:56
  SPEAKER_01: Some of them you've still got about three feet of growth.
• 10:59
  SPEAKER_01: So you've got this really neat effect, which is these sandhill cranes, again, let's say four feet tall, walking around in these fields with three feet of um of flora of plants.
• 11:11
  SPEAKER_01: And so you're looking at their head and their neck, and their their head's got that red cap on it, which is just great.
• 11:17
  SPEAKER_01: And they're out there all day just eating.
• 11:20
  SPEAKER_01: And sandhill cranes are opportunistic eaters.
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_01: They are omnivores.
• 11:24
  SPEAKER_01: So they'll eat seeds, they'll eat grains, and that's what they're eating mostly in farm country here in Nebraska.
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_01: But they'll eat berries when they find them, they'll eat insects and frogs, reptiles, even small mammals.
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_01: Whatever they can find that they can swallow where they can get some protein, that's what they're doing.
• 11:44
  SPEAKER_01: And they're out there all day doing it.
• 11:46
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and it's really it's fun to watch.
• 11:49
  SPEAKER_01: And here's a highlight, by the way.
• 11:52
  SPEAKER_01: Sandhill cranes dance.
• 11:54
  SPEAKER_01: If you have not seen a sandhill crane dance, you are missing out.
• 11:58
  SPEAKER_01: They are, they bow to each other, they flap their wings, they jump multiple feet into the air, they'll pick up objects and toss them, they'll circle each other and they'll do this, and then they'll turn and do it with somebody else, or maybe even do it alone.
• 12:13
  SPEAKER_01: But normally it's in pairs, and it's really a beautiful thing to watch.
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_01: Now, it's primarily for courtship and mating, but not exclusively.
• 12:24
  SPEAKER_01: And so it just seems that they dance for joy, um, that they are just enjoying themselves, that they've got energy and a and a love for life.
• 12:36
  SPEAKER_01: I get that that's anthropomorphism, but I don't care.
• 12:39
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you watch these birds, you cannot help but smile.
• 12:44
  SPEAKER_01: They are beautiful, they're magnificent, they are athletic, they're not what you might call graceful as they're going through this dance, but maybe that's what makes it so much more fun.
• 12:54
  SPEAKER_01: Now, while I was in Nebraska, I wanted to see prairie chickens on a lek.
• 12:59
  SPEAKER_01: And there are a couple spots in Nebraska where you can do that.
• 13:01
  SPEAKER_01: I'd not done that before, so that was going to be a first for me.
• 13:04
  SPEAKER_01: So I went out looking for them one morning, took a morning break from my regular sand hill crane mornings, and went out and looked for these prairie chickens.
• 13:13
  SPEAKER_01: And when I got to the lek where they were supposed to be, I did not see them.
• 13:18
  SPEAKER_01: What I did see was Western Meadowlarks, and they were dancing.
• 13:23
  SPEAKER_01: They were taken to the air and dancing and dropping back down and then going back up and dropping back down.
• 13:29
  SPEAKER_01: And then in this area where I had been told to go for the lek, um, it was an open area, maybe 75 yards from the road, it was open.
• 13:38
  SPEAKER_01: And then at the end of that 75 yards, there were cornfields.
• 13:42
  SPEAKER_01: Imagine uh the movie Field of Dreams, right?
• 13:44
  SPEAKER_01: You've got the outfield, and then you've got the cornfields, and suddenly these prairie chickens start coming out of the corn, which was really kind of cool.
• 13:51
  SPEAKER_01: And they come out, and now they're dancing.
• 13:54
  SPEAKER_01: And so I'm watching the Western metal arcs dance, I'm watching the prairie chickens dance.
• 13:59
  SPEAKER_01: They're not interacting um species to species.
• 14:03
  SPEAKER_01: They're just with their own.
• 14:05
  SPEAKER_01: And so I watched that for a while, and then I went back and caught the last part of the Sand Hill cranes that morning and their dances, and I'm thinking, what a spectacular thing, uh, watching these three different species of birds all dance as part of their life, as part of their joy, as part of their mating.
• 14:25
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm thinking, that's not that much different than a high school dance, right?
• 14:29
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, that's that's what you go for.
• 14:32
  SPEAKER_01: You go to dance and show off a little bit and and uh either take your girlfriend or maybe make one there.
• 14:38
  SPEAKER_01: And um I was sitting in the car watching some of this and just laughing at the similarities.
• 14:44
  SPEAKER_01: And by the way, when I talk about how awkward some of the sandhill cranes look, that was me in high school.
• 14:50
  SPEAKER_01: I did not impress anybody with my dancing.
• 14:53
  SPEAKER_01: Um, now, when they do mate, sandhill cranes are said to mate for life.
• 14:58
  SPEAKER_01: Now, of course, that's uh that's an interesting term that we throw around quite a bit when we talk about birds because they don't all live the same time.
• 15:06
  SPEAKER_01: You know, you might have a 12-year-old sandhill crane connecting with a seven-year-old sandhill crane.
• 15:11
  SPEAKER_01: They're not going to pass away in the same year.
• 15:14
  SPEAKER_01: So there's turnover.
• 15:15
  SPEAKER_01: One of them loses a mate and it goes and gets another mate.
• 15:18
  SPEAKER_01: But what you're really talking about is sandhill cranes have some mate fidelity.
• 15:22
  SPEAKER_01: Um, all things being equal, they will stay with the mate uh that they have.
• 15:27
  SPEAKER_01: And it has been chronicled that this can sometimes last 20 years, uh, which is amazing that these birds are able to do that.
• 15:37
  SPEAKER_01: And um, you watch these birds.
• 15:39
  SPEAKER_01: Of course, it's hard to tell who the pairs are when you're looking, let's say, 30, 40, 50,000 birds in a shallow river, um, but it's pretty neat.
• 15:47
  SPEAKER_01: And if you get a chance, and this isn't the time in March, but if you get a chance at another point in your in your birding career, your naturalist career, baby cranes are called colts.
• 15:58
  SPEAKER_01: And they have an extraordinarily long uh set of legs compared to their body when they're young.
• 16:06
  SPEAKER_01: And it's really, they're just funny to watch as they as they move around.
• 16:11
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe that's why they're called colts, because of those long legs.
• 16:14
  SPEAKER_01: Now I mentioned excuse me.
• 16:17
  SPEAKER_01: I mentioned snow geese.
• 16:19
  SPEAKER_01: So if you're in Nebraska in March, you are only 250 miles from a place called Les Bluffs.
• 16:26
  SPEAKER_01: And Les Bluffs is in Missouri, and that is the snow geese capital of the world.
• 16:33
  SPEAKER_01: Roughly a million snow geese gather um in Les Bluffs.
• 16:38
  SPEAKER_01: And I was there, I went there for the week before I went to see the Sand Hill Cranes.
• 16:43
  SPEAKER_01: So I got to see these birds.
• 16:44
  SPEAKER_01: One of the amazing things was I got to see snow geese in the snow.
• 16:47
  SPEAKER_01: One morning when I was there by myself, which I still find amazing, that you could actually be by yourself at something that spectacular.
• 16:55
  SPEAKER_01: A gathering of a million birds, all of them vocal, all of them squawking and talking and flying off and bald eagles and coyotes hunting them, and it's just an amazing thing to watch.
• 17:05
  SPEAKER_01: And you can actually literally be the only person there watching it.
• 17:08
  SPEAKER_01: Um, there's uh a previous podcast on snow geese, if you look it up and watch it.
• 17:13
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I think it's well worth it.
• 17:15
  SPEAKER_01: And if you can budget the time, it's about uh 250-mile drive to get out there and see that.
• 17:23
  SPEAKER_01: And for those of you that know her, um, either because you took her pelagic trips with her uh or because you saw the movie The Big Year, where she was portrayed by Angelica Houston, or you just happen to know Debbie Shearwater.
• 17:35
  SPEAKER_01: Uh Debbie and I have talked about um the Sandy Hill Cranes before, and she tries to get out there as often as she can, and she describes it as soul-enriching.
• 17:44
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that's a pretty fair way to put it.
• 17:46
  SPEAKER_01: It is a it is a truly remarkable thing to see.
• 17:49
  SPEAKER_01: Now, you've you've washed them in the morning, you've watched them in the day, and you know, you can just chase them around at the different fields, they're all over.
• 17:56
  SPEAKER_01: Um, they're habituated to humans, so if you pull the car off the side of the road, they don't take off.
• 18:02
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, they're just eating and munching and having a good time, dancing.
• 18:06
  SPEAKER_01: But now you come back to the river as the sun starts to go down.
• 18:09
  SPEAKER_01: You pick your spot, um, wherever that might be.
• 18:12
  SPEAKER_01: And there are spots that are available to the public, there are spots that are private, um, but you can find a great spot for free for the public.
• 18:20
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so you can just look that up on eBird and get out there and find out where they've been uh the last few days before you get there.
• 18:27
  SPEAKER_01: But when you do get back there, you settle in, you get your camera going, you're watching.
• 18:33
  SPEAKER_01: Again, it's like in the morning when you left.
• 18:36
  SPEAKER_01: There's not a single sandhill crane to be seen.
• 18:38
  SPEAKER_01: Or uh not one.
• 18:39
  SPEAKER_01: And and then suddenly you'll see small groups of them come in and they circle overhead, and then for whatever reason they say, no, this isn't the spot where I'm gonna stay tonight.
• 18:48
  SPEAKER_01: And they go and they fly off somewhere else.
• 18:50
  SPEAKER_01: And then another group comes in and they circle around and they say, you know what, this looks pretty good to me.
• 18:55
  SPEAKER_01: And so they drop down into the river, and now they are the attractant to other sandhill cranes.
• 19:01
  SPEAKER_01: I call them scouts.
• 19:02
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know that that's actually true or if they're just the early birds, um, but they are the first ones that settle in, and when they do, others start.
• 19:11
  SPEAKER_01: And then pretty soon, that old line about uh uh nothing, nothing creates a crowd more than a large group of people.
• 19:18
  SPEAKER_01: Um, as you get more sandhill cranes, it just leads to more.
• 19:22
  SPEAKER_01: And then pretty soon they're just raining out of the sky.
• 19:25
  SPEAKER_01: They're just dropping down.
• 19:26
  SPEAKER_01: But it's not like the bats, like we did a podcast on Mexican freetailed bats.
• 19:30
  SPEAKER_01: These are tiny little half-ounce birds.
• 19:33
  SPEAKER_01: Sandhill cranes are eight, nine, ten, eleven-pound birds, and they're just dropping down into the river.
• 19:39
  SPEAKER_01: And they land in the river, takes them a little bit to land, and they land and they settle in, and now they're talking.
• 19:44
  SPEAKER_01: And you can hear them.
• 19:45
  SPEAKER_01: How was your day?
• 19:46
  SPEAKER_01: Did you do okay?
• 19:47
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, really?
• 19:47
  SPEAKER_01: You got a mouse?
• 19:48
  SPEAKER_01: That's great.
• 19:48
  SPEAKER_01: That's got to be a welcome break from the seeds.
• 19:51
  SPEAKER_01: Everybody good, you guys have a nice dance?
• 19:53
  SPEAKER_01: You know, what's going on?
• 19:54
  SPEAKER_01: How's Martha?
• 19:55
  SPEAKER_01: How are the kids?
• 19:56
  SPEAKER_01: And they're just chattering away, and then more and more of them are coming and they're trying to settle into their position.
• 20:02
  SPEAKER_01: Where are they going to be?
• 20:03
  SPEAKER_01: The center is obviously the safest, um, as it is with any group, um, whether it's wildebeest in the savannah or snow geese off in Missouri, um, it's the fringes where you run the risk of an attack.
• 20:16
  SPEAKER_01: Generally, if you're healthy and you're in the center of one of these collections, these mass collections of animals, you're going to be safe that night.
• 20:23
  SPEAKER_01: So they want that.
• 20:24
  SPEAKER_01: And then they're moving around and checking things out.
• 20:27
  SPEAKER_01: They're maybe moving upstream or downstream a little bit and they're kind of flowing as a group, and more and more of them are coming.
• 20:34
  SPEAKER_01: It's about an hour from the time the first one drops until the last one drops, and they settle in and they're having their conversations.
• 20:41
  SPEAKER_01: And then pretty soon it starts to quiet down a little bit, and um, and then suddenly it's pitch black.
• 20:48
  SPEAKER_01: And because uh when you're in the blinds or anywhere where you're watching the sandhill cranes, it is strongly recommended, suggested, even enforced by dirty looks and and quiet comments.
• 21:02
  SPEAKER_01: No conversations and no lights, no flash photography, no cell phones, don't answer your cell phone, don't talk, because the birds are skittish and we don't want to bother them.
• 21:13
  SPEAKER_01: And so when darkness falls, it falls, it's dark.
• 21:17
  SPEAKER_01: And uh the the few nights I was there, people respected that.
• 21:21
  SPEAKER_01: Um, there would be tiny whispered conversations, but if you couldn't hear it from five feet away, the birds couldn't hear it from 75 feet away.
• 21:30
  SPEAKER_01: And so it just it just gets dark naturally.
• 21:34
  SPEAKER_01: Uh some of us hang around after dark just to listen, because now we're backing up, right?
• 21:38
  SPEAKER_01: We're going from the huge sound, it's getting smaller and smaller, and it's dropping down to the murmur, which is the first thing we hear in the morning.
• 21:46
  SPEAKER_01: And then eventually there's nothing.
• 21:49
  SPEAKER_01: There's nothing.
• 21:50
  SPEAKER_01: It's so dark you can't see the birds, and now they're no longer making noise, so you can't hear the birds.
• 21:55
  SPEAKER_01: So you know there's tens of thousands of birds out there.
• 21:58
  SPEAKER_01: Now, it might be a little noisy.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_01: Because sometimes the snow geese um aren't in Les Bluffs.
• 22:03
  SPEAKER_01: They are here.
• 22:04
  SPEAKER_01: So they they'll mix in uh with the sandhill cranes.
• 22:08
  SPEAKER_01: Not always, but sometimes.
• 22:09
  SPEAKER_01: So if they're there, they're noisy.
• 22:11
  SPEAKER_01: But if they're not, you've got virtually complete silence.
• 22:13
  SPEAKER_01: As a matter of fact, the last night I was there, it was a smaller group, about it was estimated maybe 20,000.
• 22:19
  SPEAKER_01: I was there with only one other person, but they had a few years' experience, so I took their estimate as gospel.
• 22:25
  SPEAKER_01: And there were no snowgies.
• 22:27
  SPEAKER_01: And so when it got quiet, it was quiet.
• 22:30
  SPEAKER_01: And then all of a sudden, um, from what felt like five feet away, but certainly it wasn't, there was a lone coyote that howled.
• 22:37
  SPEAKER_01: And it did not generate a reaction in sound anyway from the sandhill cranes.
• 22:42
  SPEAKER_01: But it was pitch black, it was cold, it was the two of us.
• 22:45
  SPEAKER_01: We hadn't spoken since we got in the blind.
• 22:48
  SPEAKER_01: We really did respect that.
• 22:50
  SPEAKER_01: And then all of a sudden there was this coyote that just let out this howl.
• 22:56
  SPEAKER_01: And it was just magnificent.
• 22:57
  SPEAKER_01: It was a it was my last night there, so it was a great thing to see.
• 23:01
  SPEAKER_01: And so I reached over and tapped the guy on the shoulder that I was with, and we agreed, let's go out.
• 23:06
  SPEAKER_01: So we did, we backed out, and then um we got probably 50 yards away, 75 yards away from the blind before we turned on our cell phones, give ourselves some light, and get back to the truck.
• 23:16
  SPEAKER_01: And it was a spectacular way to end it.
• 23:18
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm strongly recommending that if you get a chance to go to the Platte River in Nebraska in March, you will never regret it.
• 23:27
  SPEAKER_01: You will see things that not a lot of people get to see, and um, and none of them who do ever forget it.
• 23:35
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you so much for listening uh to Naturally Scott.
• 23:38
  SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna throw my email up here now, which is Scott at naturaliscott.com.
• 23:42
  SPEAKER_01: If you've got some comments or a question, please send it in.
• 23:46
  SPEAKER_01: I love to answer them.
• 23:47
  SPEAKER_01: I answer every single one.
• 23:48
  SPEAKER_01: I look forward to receiving them.
• 23:50
  SPEAKER_01: And if you're watching us on YouTube, please hit subscribe if you haven't done so already.
• 23:55
  SPEAKER_01: Every time we do one of these podcasts, we get a handful of more people who subscribe.
• 23:59
  SPEAKER_01: And every time that happens, YouTube pushes it out uh to more people.
• 24:04
  SPEAKER_01: And so they learn about either our guests or sandhill cranes or whatever it might be, and we're excited about that.
• 24:11
  SPEAKER_01: Uh we don't sell ads on the show.
• 24:13
  SPEAKER_01: Uh we're just doing it, it's a hobby, it's fun.
• 24:16
  SPEAKER_01: We're grateful for the guests and grateful for the animals we see.
• 24:19
  SPEAKER_01: And if you're there and you want to drop a comment or hit like, that helps with distribution as well.
• 24:25
  SPEAKER_01: And as I say at the end of every show and every chance you get, get outside.
• 24:29
  SPEAKER_01: Things happen when you're outside, and it's just thrilling to see.
• 24:33
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you never know what you're gonna stumble upon.
• 24:36
  SPEAKER_01: And outside, front porch, backyard, local park, state park, national park, whatever it might be, but you're bound to see something.
• 24:44
  SPEAKER_01: And often you're gonna see something you've never seen before.
• 24:47
  SPEAKER_01: And when you do get outside, make sure that you stay safe and stay curious.
• 24:52
  SPEAKER_01: I'm Scott Harris.
• 24:54
  SPEAKER_01: I'm thrilled that you took the time to watch this show.
• 24:56
  SPEAKER_01: I hope you come back and watch us again.
• 24:58
  SPEAKER_01: If you've got thoughts on it, send me a note.
• 25:01
  SPEAKER_01: Have a great day.
• 25:02
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you very much.
• 25:04
  SPEAKER_00: This has been a Naturally Scott Adventures podcast with Scott Harris.
• 25:08
  SPEAKER_00: Naturally Scott Adventures is hosted by Scott Harris, produced by Justin Harris, and edited by Frank Sierra.
• 25:15
  SPEAKER_00: Follow us on our YouTube channel at Naturally Scott and Instagram at Naturally Scott Harris.
• 25:22
  SPEAKER_00: If this conversation resonated with you, please follow the show, leave a review, and share it with someone who needs to hear it.
• 25:29
  SPEAKER_00: Naturally Scott Adventures thanks you for viewing and listening to this podcast.