34 Nebraskaland • March 2026
The five banded cranes left the
Platte between March 27 and April
6, each stopping in for a time in the
Dakotas and south-central Canada
before forging ahead to their nesting
grounds in early May.
The trackers upload data every four
hours whenever they are within range
of a cellular tower and only collect and
store data when they are not. Each of
the birds left areas with cell service
before reaching their nesting grounds.
"Once they got to some of these more
remote areas, we just didn't hear from
them for a while," Kanz said.
Kanz and others working on the
study were relieved when, in August
and September, location data started
pouring back in and they knew all five
birds were still alive and well.
It was only then they could see that
one of the cranes had nested in Russia,
something that was known to occur
but not expected for this study. "How
cool and lucky is it that we managed
to snag one of those birds, right?"
Kanz said.
Researchers were pleasantly
surprised to see that the four other
birds each nested in a different part
of Canada: Manitoba, Ontario and the
Northwest and Nunavut territories.
"I couldn't have planned it better,"
Kanz said. "And we didn't plan it,
right? It's random cranes. But it does
a really good job of showing just
how dispersed these populations of
sandhill cranes can be."
The birds migrated south in late-
August or early-September. They
stopped in locations in southern
Saskatchewan or North Dakota for a
few weeks before continuing south
in mid- to late-October. All five birds
flew through Nebraska, but none of
them stopped, something that didn't
surprise Kanz as each passed on a day
with strong northerly winds.
The crane that nested in Russia
followed the most westerly route
south and, on the day it made it
Fog rises from a Platte River full of sandhill cranes on a March morning.
