By Ronica Stromberg
It's a class that for only $400 provides University of Nebraska–Lincoln students with transportation, meals and lodging at the United States’ most popular spring break destination.
For birds, that is.
Every spring, about 80 percent of the world’s sandhill cranes converge in central Nebraska in late February. There, about a million sandhill cranes act out the same scene their ancestors have for ages, meeting, mating and gorging on beak-smacking foods like leftover crops, insects, snails, small fish, mice and frogs.
From March 16-20, 2025 this year, the three instructors of the NRES 493 class—enrolling now!—will take up to eight students to these grounds and then on to the Sandhills. On the sandy shores and isles of the Platte River, students can expect to see not the typical beach scenes of bikinis and Speedos but of birds—dancing and having the time of their life during migration. Sandhill cranes test all their moves on spindly legs and then make off to Canada before taxes come due.
After watching this scene from Crane Trust blinds and staying in the organization's dorms, the students and instructors will head north into the Sandhills to see other bird species dancing on breeding grounds called leks. Male prairie chickens typically pull out all the stops in this dance competition to attract mates. They stomp their short legs, jump in the air, spin in circles, and make the feathers on their heads stand up like horns. If this chicken dance fails to catch a hen’s eyes, her ears offer another chance. The males inflate the orange air sacs on their necks and call out in booms that can be heard up to a mile away.
The morning after, students will watch the courtship dance of sharp-tailed grouse on their leks. These birds’ choreography may include clawing, pecking and chest bumps between competitors, like a mini WWE Smackdown.
Mike Forsberg, a conservation photographer and School of Natural Resources professor, co-leads this class, now in its fourth year. Larkin Powell, the director of the School of Natural Resources, and Carlee Moates, a producer for the Platte Basin Timelapse, will coteach with him this year. The class was dubbed 'Prairie Cranes and Sandhill Chickens' as a play on the birds' real names. Sandhill cranes are found in the prairie, and prairie chickens are found in the Sandhills. Students learn this and much more about the birds and the land in the one-credit course.
Students interested in taking the class need to email Forsberg at mforsberg2@unl.edu and Moates at ckoehler2@unl.edu by February 14, 2025. They should give their name, major, year, background and tell why they are interested in the class or how they expect it to benefit them.
Read the complete story and see more picture of last year's class at https://snr.unl.edu/aboutus/what/newstory.aspx?fid=1217