Counting Cranes

Synopsis

Imagine trying to count hundreds of thousands of birds in a matter of seconds. This is what Andy Caven does every spring… from a plane. In March, almost a million sandhill cranes pass through Nebraska’s Platte River Valley. For the past 20 years, the Crane Trust has conducted aerial surveys of sandhill crane roosts to get an accurate count of the number of birds that pass through. Andy and his team take us behind the scenes to show us how this is done, what they have learned, and why it’s important.