Cranes

At our niece's wedding in Lincoln, Nebraska Kay and I discovered that the nearby Platte River valley is the epicenter of the sandhill crane migration. At the very moment of our visit over 400,000 of the birds were congregated to rest and refuel on their way north. Enabling us to enjoy this wildlife spectacle took a full family effort. My sister from New York had a chance conversation with an ornithologist to put the cranes on our map; my brother from Missouri opened up a special sighting opportunity through The Crane Trust; and my son from Indiana lent us his car for the two-hour pre-dawn drive to the cranes' staging area.

Sandhill cranes on the Platte River

The cranes rely on the shallow braided channels of the river for safe nighttime roosting and foraging opportunities for waste grain in adjacent corn fields. During their stop in Nebraska they gain 10-20 percent of their body weight to complete the flight from southern wintering grounds to their breeding territories in Canada, Alaska and Siberia. Their necessities that used to be met on a broad 200-mile floodplain are now carefully nurtured by conservation agencies in a 60-mile stretch of the Platte River that forms an hourglass neck in the vast range of the cranes.

Sandhill crane migration on the Central Flyway

Map from www.nebraskaflyway.com

The State of Nebraska and the Audubon Society work creatively at public education and habitat renewal to help people and cranes coexist within the pressures of urbanization and large scale agriculture. The Crane Trust dedicates its mission to extending favorable conditions for the birds and giving people the opportunity to appreciate them at fairly close range.

Areas protected by The Crane Trust on the Platte River

The morning after the wedding Kay and I were guided through half-moon darkness to a Crane Trust observation blind alongside the river. We could hear tentative murmurings at first, then a melodious gabbling that swelled as the light grayed into a surrounding chorus suggestive of gigantic spring peepers. Fantastic colors enriched the sky. The birds voiced their considerations for the new day in tumultuous discussions and tender trills, gradually taking to the air.

Cranes on sandbar sanctuaries before sunrise




 

First light




 

Flocking to the corn fields at dawn




 

Early mist




 

Sunrise, Platte River




 

Lincoln

At a family wedding in Lincoln, Nebraska we visited this tribute to presidential grace and dignity. The bronze statue (1912) is the first rendering of Abraham Lincoln created by Daniel Chester French. Later he was commissioned to sculpt the marble portrait in the Lincoln Memorial  of Washington, D. C.

The Rockport Granite Company supplied the finished stone for the Nebraska monument, seagreen granite from Blood Ledge Quarry. If you magnify the image you can see that it is inscribed with the entire Gettysburg Address. Altogether this homage to character in high office is good tonic today.



Photograph from the files of the Rockport Granite Company,

Sandy Bay Historical Society

Ice and Snow on the Quarry

Notes without Words, 2

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Duck Patterns

Notes without Words, 1

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Point of View

Perfectly ordinary stuff asks back, "What lives?"

Russet sheaths play the genius,

warming the immersion of straw into metallic water,

sheltering next season's life in their expiration.

Ripples and reflections animate a photograph;

or is it you and I who live into the picture?

Looking again from a spacious point of view

I'm steadied by a prosaic title to the scene.

The straw burns more brightly on the water than the air.

A light wind shimmies mosaics in the mirror

teasing the crescendo of symmetry

while a minute passes in the winter wait of the cattails. 

The artless panorama extending to the horizon

composes a vignette for my notice.

It refers to itself in a revelation of light,

and I shift my point of view.

A deep blue dissolves the spirals of straw-beams

fired cordially into the realm of certitude.