ROOST

I consider myself extremely lucky to have found my niche, my livelihood if you will with children. They called us ‘Teachers’ but I was never comfortable with that; I was the oldest kid in the room and like a big brother when my mother was away, responsible for the youngsters. I learned early that my agenda, my lesson plan was never as important as what children brought with them to my classroom; and that my boss was never as important as he or she thought they were. Oh, we got the job done and some of those kids can still, I’m sure, explain the difference between mitosis and meiosis, between momentum and inertia.
My job for six years was as an environmental issues resource teacher. That involved many, many field trips with urban kids who didn’t like to walk off the sidewalk because that’s where creepy-crawly things lived and where squirrels poop. One of our best trips was in March to the Platte River in Nebraska. My thing; my window to the world of wild, growing things was wetlands and the Platte in March is awesome. My part was to create a workbook with assignments to be completed on the 5 hour bus ride, out and back. The object of our quest was to see the migration of Sandhill Cranes from their winter retreats in Mexico and south Texas to their breeding range in Canada. 

For millions of years, the Sandhills have been making this trek, north in spring then return south after their young have fledged in the fall. Farmers have been growing corn here for not even 200 years but they have filled, plowed and cultivated pocket wetlands out of existence. Now the Platte River is the only place left where migrating cranes can stop to rest and replenish themselves. Cranes are uncompromising when it comes to choosing a roost. For them to sleep at night they must be standing in moving water, with unobstructed vision for several hundred feet; a wide, shallow stream. The Platte River, that’s it, from Texas to Canada. 

With students it was always too cold for them and they complained. But we went to the observation areas as the sun began to sink and the Sandhills, who had been foraging in fields all day, began returning to the river for the night. In groups large and small, they came from all directions, high and low. The noise grew from distant calls on the wing to a raucous din of squawking, croaking birds gathered in the shallows; it was surreal. On a 40 mile stretch of river, nearly three quarters of a million cranes would bed down for the night. 

The next morning before dawn we were back with binoculars and cameras. Cranes are extremely wary. They stay away from things civilized and far away from people so we have to be stealthy. If we cause a disturbance they roost farther from us, up or down stream. So as the dawn breaks with steamy, frosty breaths we listened to the birds, still croaking in the dark. Soon they would be coming up off the water in family groups, off to surrounding fields where they feed on roots and grain left over from the fall harvest. They eat snails and worms, salamanders and frogs still hibernating. It may take a week for the birds to regain strength and weight lost on the flight so far and the way to their mating grounds is still hundreds if not a thousand miles. 

Two nights ago I was on the bike path bridge at Kearney, Nebraska. There were too many of us for the birds to land nearby but the fly-over was great and you could see them settling up and down stream in the distance. Then, yesterday early I went to a viewing stand at a backroad bridge near Grand Island. There was just a thread of dawn glowing down stream but the birds were awake. As the horizon went from gray to pink then gold; there they were. Not a quarter mile away, thousands of Sandhill Cranes, on a sand bar, knee deep in the Platte, waiting for a reason to take off. If it’s windy they may rise straight up, several hundred at a time. If calm they can skim along the water in long lines, gaining speed then lofting just in time to clear the trees along the shore. It was calm yesterday and if you weren’t paying attention, you could miss it all together. I took photographs. 

I’ve been back to see the Sandhills several times since the old days with my students. For the most part I share the experience with old white people who care about nature, who appreciate wild life and like me, can’t resist the feel that comes with it. Part of that good feel comes from knowing I had a hand in bringing urban, street savvy kids to see the cranes. If we hadn’t, most of them would never know what they had missed. They complained of the cold and of boredom and they all wanted to eat, all the time. But on the way back to the city, all they talked about were the cranes and they were happy. Life is incredibly complex, so much so that we can’t digest it all. But in small bites you can chew on the wonder from every morsel. I’m old, and that is what I’ve learned.