Our multiple week string of moderate, unseasonal weather conditions has come to an end, and with the strong westerly winds that took those conditions away came a reminder that spring is that much closer now and the time has come to begin checking items off my retirement to do list.
In all of the years we have lived in Nebraska we have never participated in watching the spring migration of Sandhills Cranes in central Nebraska. That is to change this year. We have made reservations for March 15 at one of The Nature Conservancy’s crane watching blinds near the Platte River.
The cranes annually draw thousands of visitors from their arrival in late February through the first part of April. Usually, but subject to the weather, peak numbers occur the second and third week of March. It is no exaggeration to say the cranes’ arrival is perhaps the biggest and most anticipated nature related event of the year in Nebraska.
As excited as I am about the cranes' coming arrival, I don’t have to wait for them to have birds to watch.
My previously mentioned efforts to draw more and more birds to our front yard continue to be successful. Although goldfinches remain the dominant species at the feeder - and it is not uncommon to find a dozen or more of them in our two very small, leaf-barren trees at any one time - I can now report the recurring, just like clockwork, visits of several bird species beside goldfinches. Those other species are black-capped chickadees and finches at the feeder and cardinals, dark-eyed juncos and robins on the ground.
What friends they make.
This sounds like a great trip!
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