Words about Birds: Birding in Nebraska

I had the opportunity to attend the AFO/WOS/COS joint meeting in Kearney, Nebraska last week with Drew Weber, Nate Fronk, and Emily Thomas. The main reason for the conference to be held in Kearney is because it is the Sandhill Crane capital of the world. They were right in the fact that it was the Sandhill Crane capital of the world because we saw over 50,000 Sandhill Cranes in the area and well over 500,000 Snow Geese. Over 500,000 Sandhill Cranes use the Platte River as a stopover site on their migration route through March and April.

Sandhill Cranes

Snow Geese lifting up off of a pond

When we left the airport in Omaha, we stopped at Levi Carter Park and Drew immediately spotted a Prairie Falcon overhead. This was an awesome trip bird to start the week off with! We also had a few species of waterfowl at the park including Common Goldeneye, Lesser Scaup, and Ruddy Duck.

We spent the first two days of the week birding nonstop. We drove the Western Rainwater Basin Wetlands Driving Tour and stopped at a few State Recreation Area and Waterfowl Production Areas. We observed huge flocks of Snow Geese and Sanhill Cranes as well as many Lapland Longspurs and Horned Larks. The most abundant specie of waterfowl along the driving tour was Northern Pintail. We did see good numbers of other waterfowl throughout the week as well.

many species of waterfowl

After the first two days we started the conference which did not leave very much time to bird, but we did end up getting over 80 species for the week. A complete species list can be seen below.