6 NEBRASKAland • APRIL 2016
Gary Panzer photographed these two bull elk about 30
miles north of Scottsbluff.
Only in China
I wanted you to know just how much I enjoyed your recent
magazine story "Europeans, Cranes and a Daughter." That was
extremely well done. You are so fortunate to have a daughter
who shares your passion. I know what that is like because of my
relationship with my son.
As I read the story I couldn't help but remember my last trip to
China where I saw their red-crested cranes, cousins of our sandhill
cranes. I was in the city of QiQiHar on a medical mission. One day
our hosts announced they were taking us to a bird sanctuary to see
their cranes. We were told we needed to get there by 10:00 because
that was when the cranes flew and I wondered, just how did they
know the cranes would fly at exactly that time.
We arrived at the sanctuary, walked about a mile on a boardwalk
through a marsh to an area where 400 or so people were waiting.
It was then I found out how they knew when the cranes would fly.
That was when their keepers let them out of their cage. The keepers
walked up to the enclosure with buckets of birdseed and opened the
gate. The cranes followed them down a path to the water where they
took off, flew in a half-circle and landed. Then they followed their
keepers back to the cage where they were fed birdseed and waited
until the next group of tourists came to watch them fly.
Only in China.
David Fowler
Ogallala, Nebraska
Aaron Beckman captured this
camera trap photo of a red fox
urinating on a log in
Knox County.
