My first destination was Nebraska, to see the crane migration. Flyers and guides listed parks and bird sanctuaries to visit, but the best views I found were by pulling over on the side of the road near farm fields or water. Near sunrise and sunset, waves of flocks would fly over. One black cloud after another levitated, then swooshed past in the formation of a stroke of paint from an enormous paintbrush.
Sometimes, all at once, birds flew in front of me, on each side, above me, and behind me. The area echoed with the chatter of sandhills- even when I couldn’t see them, I could hear them.
Photo: cranes at the Platte River, near Kearney and Gibbon, NE