Autumn Cranes

For the last few weeks, we've had a number of folks looking for sandhill cranes. After all, if they come through in the spring, shouldn't they do the same in the fall? Brad or I will explain how the sandhill cranes migrate through in the fall but don't stop, how circumstances for the birds are different compared to March, they're heard more often than seen in fall, they travel in small groups now, and so forth.

Sometimes that news doesn't go over well. I can understand.

But on my way to work this morning, along the Platte River Road perhaps two miles west of Doniphan, I took the picture above -- part of a group consisting of at least 200 birds. Would you have been able to tell it was not taken in March? (A second equal-sized or even larger group was feeding closer to the Alda Road.)

It was a nice little taste of early Spring a few months ahead of schedule. And I could actually point potential visitors to a few cranes on a pretty late October day.