RANDY OLSON_MM8429_2481082.TIF
Sandhill cranes fly in to roost in the shallows of the Platte River. They do a courtship dance but this behavior can also be an aggressive or territorial show.
Every year 400,000 to 600,000 sandhill cranes—80 percent of all the cranes on the planet—congregate along an 80-mile stretch of the central Platte River in Nebraska, to fatten up on waste grain in the empty cornfields in preparation for the journey to their Arctic and subarctic nesting grounds.
Sandhill cranes among the world’s oldest living birds and one of the planet’s most successful life-forms, having outlasted millions of species (99 percent of species that ever existed are now extinct).
- Copyright
- RANDY OLSON
- Image Size
- 6000x4000 / 137.4MB
- olsonfarlow.com
- Keywords
-
animal behavior, animals, animals in the wild, aquifers, birds, color image, cranes, cranes (birds), great plains, grus canadensis, high plains aquifer, incidental animals, mid air, midwestern states, migration, nebraska, no people, north america, one animal, outdoors, photography, platte river, rivers, roosting, sandhill cranes, selective focus, standing out from the crowd, surface, twilight, united states, usa, water, wildlife, wood river
- Contained in galleries
- Ogallala Aquifer_National Geographic Magazine 8/2016
