Every year millions of migrating birds travel the Central Flyway, the "hourglass" route narrows in central Nebraska.
An eighty mile bow in the heart of Nebraska that runs from Lexington to Grands Island serves as a month long stop-over for 500,000 sandhill cranes and endangered whooping cranes. This stretch of the Platte - in the narrowest part of the cranes migratory tract is an ideal habitat area for the cranes because it is shallow enough to allow them to roost, and wide enough to provide them with security from predators. The Platte therefore provides them with a unique resting and feeding sanctuary en route to their breeding homes of Siberia, Alaska, and Canada.
Last updated 7.1.98