One of the continent’s biggest bird spectacles is underway along the Platte River in central Nebraska. Uncountable numbers of Snow Geese, Canada Geese, Sandhill Cranes, and Horned Larks are here, feeding and resting before resuming their movement north. We are at Kearney, birding the river flats and farm fields south of town. From sunup to sundown the sky today was laced with strings and flocks of birds, thousands overhead at one time. At the Rowe Audubon Sanctuary here we found Harris’s, White-crowned, and Tree Sparrows, and male Lapland Longspurs just beginning to show breeding plumage. The geese are beginning to move out, while most of the cranes are still working their way here from wintering grounds in Texas. It’s cold, predicted warm weather apparently moving with those Texas cranes. But it certainly looks and sounds like spring. The photos show larks and geese.

This entry was posted on Monday, March 2nd, 2009 at 10:09 pm and is filed under Bird migration, Bird travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.