Poetry of Flight

One of the reasons cranes are here in Nebraska for several weeks is to stock up body fat for the rest of their flight north and because once they reach destination they are going to be more concerned with mating than they will be with food. Since the cranes are storing up body fat, they conserve energy by using thermals to get altitude to continue the journey. So why then do they use thermals during their four weeks of feasting when there is not need to fly that far?

I liked the answer from our guide for the morning, Kent Skaggs: “Why do they do it? Guess the question is why not?”
We were on a road next to a cornfield earlier today and the cranes were playing with the thermals. With no signal, hundreds of birds rippled into the air calling and giggling to each other in voices that are unlike any other sound. The sight is something like a lazy and loose tornado or a living canvass with gracefully sweeping brushstrokes of minute detail combined with the depth of the intricate and quickly changing flight paths.

“This is not something you can describe over the phone,” Kent said. “You really have to get people to experience it.”

Other birds
There are several other birds migrating through the same area. Snow geese are some and they covered one hill alongside the freeway in a way that made us look twice because it just looked like the rest of the leftover snow around. Also, they fly much higher and look like a quilting pattern of white stitches in the eggshell blue sky connecting pieces of the clouds.

Jessica Petzel