Dates: March 17–24, 2026

Leader: Rick Wright

E-bird

Total Species: 82 birds

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Overall Summary

It’s easy to forget, in this noisy world we have created, just how much of any genuine experience of nature is auditory. Time and again during our week on the Great Plains, we were reminded that hearing really is the birder’s most important—and often most enjoyable—mode of perception: not in the trivial sense, necessarily, of “birding by ear,” but in the way that sound can bring us both closer to and deeper into the world of plants and animals. We stood beneath the exhilarating roar of the cottonwoods on the one windy day we experienced, and our outings in eastern Nebraska and western Iowa took place in a soundscape of Northern Cardinal song, loud and bright. Flocks of Greater White-fronted Geese tootled their way north against impossibly blue skies, while Eastern and Western Meadowlarks greeted the day, sometimes from the same field.

The eeriest of our mornings—and the earliest, with a still more-than-humane 6:15 departure from McCook—found us enveloped in the rumbling hoots of Greater Prairie-Chickens as they solemnly danced their way into the next generation. Out on the shortgrass of Angus Gary’s ranch, the thrumming of these stunning and slightly comical grouse was interrupted only by the tinkling songs of Horned Larks, uttered, in best Horned Lark tradition, from atop cow pies. The chickens’ display is often called “booming,” a term that, evocative as it is, does little justice to the birds’ astonishing repertoire of moans, cackles, and whines. As always, we were so close in our stock-trailer blinds that we could hear the stamping of feathered feet responsible for the chickens’ fast, rattling drumroll. There is nothing like it when the prairie sun rises to reveal a dozen or more males strutting through the buffalo grass, pinnae erect and vividly orange throat sacs inflated.

And, of course, the cranes. As soon as we crossed the Hall County line, every field of corn stubble and milo held hundreds or thousands of Sandhill Cranes, feasting on waste grain in preparation for a northbound flight that would take many of them as far as the Russian Far East and Siberia. Whenever we stepped outside, we found ourselves immersed in one of the wildest sounds in the world, a chorus of croaks and rattles swelling into a nearly impenetrable sonic backdrop.

The cranes were with us constantly while we were on the central Platte River, and we made four special excursions—to bridges, platforms, and blinds—to witness their crepuscular comings and goings from the massive shallow-water roosts. Each visit and site held its own peculiar charm, but the most impressive this year was our last morning’s sojourn on the banks of the river at the Alda bridge. Small, noisy groups of birds—a few thousand in total—were roosting downstream, while to our west we initially estimated some 9,000 cranes massed in the shallows. Then the sun rose, the dawn’s fingers not so much rosy as scarlet, revealing behind that first rank of 9,000 what was likely the largest coherent flock of Sandhill Cranes any of us had ever seen. The birds were, literally, innumerable, but pressed to quantify them, we finally estimated (a fine word, that, for guessing) a total of 100,000 on the water, with untold thousands more audible beyond the river’s nearest bend. As small groups and large waves peeled off to fly out to the fields for the day, we could do nothing but stand and gape.

Not all of our most memorable moments were aural. A large white form in a roadside field resolved itself, once we had retraced our steps along more accommodating country roads, into a splendid Whooping Crane—one of a total of five we would encounter this year. The wild population of this species is recovering to an extent inconceivable just fifty years ago, but even so, our birds represented a solid 1% of the global population of this supreme symbol of conservation efforts—and, thus far, success.

Other, more abundant birds of the plains were almost as thrilling.

Day-by-Day Summary

March 17 - First meeting at our Carter Lake hotel, followed by dinner. A cold day, but the temperature rose as the evening went on.

March 18 - Calm and bright, with temperatures at freezing at 7:00 a.m. Fontenelle Forest, the northwesternmost extension of eastern deciduous forest. Afternoon temperatures reached the low 60s °F. The area’s anatid hotspot produced more than 20 species of ducks and geese.

March 19 - 7:00 a.m. departure for Lincoln, with both meadowlarks, American White Pelicans, and 30–40 Bald Eagles. Arrival in Kearney by mid-afternoon. Cranes at sunset, with temperatures reaching 91°F.

March 20 - 47°F for the cranes’ morning flight. Rowe Sanctuary produced waterfowl and American Tree, Harris’s, and White-crowned Sparrows. 86°F on arrival in McCook. Visit to a Frank Lloyd Wright house, followed by an introduction to the Greater Prairie-Chicken and its current and historical presence on the Great Plains.

March 21 - Two hours in prairie chicken blinds, followed by midday in Barnett Park. Crane blinds in the evening, with temperatures reaching a stifling 97°F; thousands of cranes, Great Horned Owls, and American White Pelicans.

March 22 - 8:30 a.m. departure for Rowe Sanctuary; exactly 50°F cooler than the previous afternoon, with winds at 45 mph. On to Crane Trust, and an early evening encounter with our first Whooping Crane. Winds diminished and temperatures rose to 54°F as we reached Grand Island.

March 23 - 6:00 a.m. with the roosting cranes; 27°F. Six figures of Sandhill Cranes on the river, joined by four Whooping Cranes. Leisurely breakfast, then on to Omaha for a final dinner together.

March 24 - Tour ended with breakfast in Carter Lake.

Wildlife Seen: 

Northern chorus frog

Northern leopard frog

Eastern cottontail

Eastern gray squirrel

Fox squirrel

Gallery