Every spring Nebraska’s central Platte River valley hosts one the most remarkable wildlife spectacles in North America and the largest gatherings of cranes in the world. From midFebruary through early April about a million sandhill cranes stage here, feeding in cornfields and wet meadows by day and roosting in the shallow flowing waters of the Platte River at night.

The central Platte River is important to sandhill cranes and other migratory birds because it serves as a key stopover site where birds rest and store energy to continue their northward migration and subsequently breed. Sandhill cranes that stop in Nebraska spread out as they continue north and their breeding range extends across the northern United States, Canada and even Siberia.