Nebraska: The Sandhills and the Platte River

As it crosses the plains of central Nebraska, the Platte River hosts one of North America’s greatest wildlife spectacles. Each spring, several million birds stop over on their northbound migration, among them more than 500,000 Sandhill Cranes, some 80 percent of the world population. Every evening and morning, the cranes in their thousands fly to and from feeding grounds in nearby fields and wet meadows and roosting areas on the Platte’s broad channels and sandbars. We’ll watch them both arriving and departing. During the day, Greater Prairie Chicken are a major focus and we’ll observe their manic dancing displays at a site in the 20,000 wild square miles of Nebraska Sandhills.

Other species regularly seen on our tour include Ross’s and Richardson’s Cackling Geese, Harlan’s Red-tailed Hawk, Baird’s Sandpiper, American Woodcock, Red-headed Woodpecker, Carolina Wren, Dark-eyed (Oregon) Junco, Harris’s Sparrow, and Eastern and Western Meadowlarks. Our relaxed schedule lets us appreciate fully the extraordinary concentrations of birds that make central Nebraska a world-class birding destination.