Author name: Meg Rice

Each spring, roughly one million sandhill cranes, the largest gathering of cranes anywhere in the world, gather in the Platte River Valley of south-central Nebraska to rest and refuel for several weeks while on an epic several thousand mile journey through the heart of the Great Plains from wintering grounds as far south as Mexico…

Out in the darkness there are 600,000 Sandhill Cranes on the Platte River. They have come back — and so have we. Our small band is walking like pilgrims to a shrine, through prairie grasses growing on the ancient river bed, towards the living river that is alive with bird and the great burbling communal