A crane season tradition | Audubon

Greater than 50 years in the past, Audubon, a grass roots volunteer led group started internet hosting what would change into often known as the Crane Competition—recognizing the return of Sandhill Cranes to the Platte River as probably the most outstanding hen migration spectacles on Earth. What started within the early Seventies as a small gathering of passionate birds and conservation advocates has since grown right into a nationally acknowledged ecotourism vacation spot and a month-long celebration of one of many biggest wildlife migrations on this planet.

At present, Crane Season at Audubon’s Rowe Sanctuary spans March and early April and contains six weeks of guided crane viewing alternatives alongside the Platte River. Along with providing world-class viewing experiences, Rowe Sanctuary companions with scientists, conservation leaders, artists, and educators to current partaking applications designed to complement our friends’ experiences. Whether or not you’re a first-time customer or a lifelong birder, we invite you to affix us this spring to study, rejoice, and expertise one in every of North America’s biggest wildlife migrations. Rowe Sanctuary provides courses on crane conduct and ecology, lectures on conservation efforts throughout Nebraska and the Nice Plains, and particular applications that discover the cultural, inventive, and scientific dimensions of migration.

One custom that is still from the unique Crane Competition is our annual Speaker Collection. Every year, the collection highlights necessary conservation points and present instances a number of the devoted people working domestically and globally to guard cranes and their habitat.

This yr’s speaker collection options partaking, in-person lectures on matters starting from Whooping Crane restoration and Platte River water administration to wetland conservation, storytelling and poetry.

Our purpose is to boost what guests witness on the river every morning and night—providing deeper perception into the science, partnerships, and keenness behind crane conservation. In any case, the cranes know find out how to placed on a present; we hope our audio system assist inform the story behind it.

Price and registration:
All Speaker Collection lectures are free, however pre-registration is required as area is proscribed.

The place can folks discover extra info?

Periods happen on Fridays and Saturdays, March 6 by means of April 4, 2026, with most shows held from 2:30–3:15 p.m
Full schedules, presentation descriptions, and registration particulars for the Speaker Collection (and all Crane Season programming) may be discovered here.

We stay up for welcoming you to Crane Season 2026