Hey all!
We got some cranes yesterday morning! We estimate around 1,500 Sandhill Cranes betweenChapman and Overton NE. The Sandhill Cranes were roosting in the river between Highway 281 and Alda Rd lookout. If the cranes stuck around last night they were illuminated by the Beaver Moon, the November full moon, which this year also happened to be a super moon. The name is thought to come from increased beaver activity in the fall to build dams and lodges before winter. I don’t know about you but we’ve been seeing more Whooping Crane activity than beaver activity lately (perhaps because we’re paying more attention to cranes than beavers currently, but I digress). Yesterday our partners on the river spotted 7 total Whooping Cranes throughout the day. With that in mind, we’d like to unofficially rename this year’s Beaver Moon to the Super Whooper Moon! However, we do appreciate our beavers here. Beavers can play a
huge role in keeping a prairie, a prairie by cutting down trees. They also create and maintain wetlands by damming streams and sloughs. So, I suppose the beavers can keep this one.
A reflection post-survey as we discussed Whooping Cranes with our pilot, current Whooping Crane numbers are estimated at 834 individuals. We saw only two roosts of Sandhill Cranes this morning and we saw almost double the number of Sandhills as there are Whooping Cranes in the world! Numbers are slowly increasing for Whooping Cranes, but putting their numbers in the context of two fairly small groups of Sandhills reignited the urgency to protect these birds with all we have!
Till next time,
Forsbird and the Crane Counter
(Elsa Forsberg & Bethany Ostrom)