It's a bird! It's a plane! No wait, yeah. . yeah it's a bird

I am currently in my home town of Omaha, Nebraska (which contrary to popular belief, is not located in the south - Omaha is pretty much a straight line west from Chicago - look at a map people).  It has been a mostly fun time, beginning with road tripping across Iowa with my sister to get home and surprise my mom.  She was thoroughly surprised, but mostly just wanted to know how many lies we had told her in order to keep this trip a secret.  Basically the answer is, a lot.  My sister and I are very good at deception (with the help of dad of course - he would be upset if we took all the credit).

Anyway, the main purpose of this post is to talk about my trip to see the Sandhill cranes in Kearney, NE.  Every year an estimated 600,000 cranes migrate through the Nebraska Platte River Valley.  My parents were planning on going to see them and I decided I would expand my unemployment adventures to the middle of nowhere Nebraska.  On the way to Kearney, we stopped at the ever-impressive Great Platte River Archway http://archway.org/ which is basically a tourist attraction museum created over interstate 80 which leads you through a replicated Oregon trail, covered wagons and all.  Basically it was as wonderfully cheesy as would be expected - with a cowboy to greet you at the door, wax figures demonstrating how to survive out in the great plains, and fake lightening and thunder as you walked through the exhibits.  After this national treasure, it was time to move on to see the cranes.

My parents went to see the cranes land in the evening, but I was mostly interested in seeing them take off in the morning.  So, we woke up at 5:30am in order to get out to what is called a 'blind' out by the sandhills of the Platte River so that we could be ready before the cranes get up and fly away in the mornings to fill up on corn in the fields.  A blind, I have learned, is essentially a shed with holes cut out of it so that you can look out but not be seen by the birds.  Before the sun began to rise, I felt very silly, huddling in a pitch-black shed with other bird watchers. . .waiting. . .for something to happen.  I have decided that this was the closest I will ever come to feeling like I am hunting.

Finally when the sun rose far enough to see what was in front of us, we could see thousands upon thousands of birds resting out on the water.  We were told that most often what makes the birds take off is an eagle, which could come by and scare the birds off at any moment.  After probably only a half hour of waiting, in the distance I could see what looked to be a black cloud coming our way.  As you probably guessed, the black cloud was actually birds.  Soon after this, an eagle did scare the remaining birds and I found myself being overwhelmed by thousands of birds swarming above.

For some reason I can't get the video to upload right now, I will try again later, but it was pretty amazing.  In conclusion, all you Nebraskans who have not made it out to see the cranes take off, it's well worth the trip.  Unemployment task #5:  Bird Watching
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