Now this was a long day! I hadn’t included Gavins Point in our itinerary, but that Harlequin Duck is just too good to pass up, and he performed beautifully for us when we arrived at Gavins Point about 8:30 this morning. The combination of a surpassing rarity, slightly warmer temperatures, and a weekend day also produced our first encounters with other birders; great to see some old acquaintances and to make new friends over a bird like this!

Most of the other staked-out birds from my scouting visit showed up, including Horned Grebe and a number of Wilson’s Snipe, but I was a little disappointed to see that more water was being released from the dam, destroying the spit where I’d watched gulls. No matter; we needed to move anyway if we were to get to Grand Island in time for the cranes.

It was a long drive down through northeast Nebraska, and there was precious little to see along the way. As we approached the Platte River, though, activity heated up, and soon enough we were surrounded by Sandhill Cranes, on the fields and in the air in their rattling thousands. Northern Pintails were courting everywhere, surprising numbers for so late in the month, and a single Loggerhead Shrike was a reminder that spring would eventually arrive, even here. We had directions to the area where Whooping Cranes had been seen in the last few days, but couldn’t find anything tall and white, so just wandered around looking for large concentrations of Sandhills. And then, suddenly, a quarter mile away, a snow drift raised its head: Whooping Crane, an unbanded adult that soon strode close enough for us to see its red crown and bright eye.

We spent the late afternoon at the Gibbon Bridge, watching waterfowl, cranes, and shorebirds including both Greater and Lesser Yellowlegs on the river. We’d had some great birds, but the best of all came just before sunset, when a startling Long-billed Curlew shot downstream right in front of us. This is a rare, rare bird so far east and south, one I would never have predicted, and looms already as a strong candidate for “bird of the trip” for me.

The trip is shaping up to be a lot of fun, the group congenial, the birds cooperative. If only the weather were a little warmer! We ended up spending as much time in the car today as out of it, but still had some exciting experiences.

One of them came as we drove slowly along Cedar Creek Road. Horned Larks and Western Meadowlarks were everywhere, driven to the roadsides by the still heavy snow cover. At one point, I saw three suspicious-looking black forms on the muddy ground of a horsepen. We turned around and found three Brewer’s Blackbirds, a stunning, shiny male accompanied by two dark-eyed beauties. This is not a common bird in southeast Nebraska, and these were my first for Cass County. Almost enough to make me a county lister!

One of our target species nearly eluded us today. Harris’s Sparrow can be tremendously common along these brushy farm roads in fall and spring, but late March is not a great time to look for them: a bit late for the wintering birds, a couple of weeks early for the big warm-season pushes of northbound migrants. I did see one at Gavins Point the other day, farther upriver than I’d expected, but we didn’t run across any at all for the first several hours today, until finally a single individual popped up in a junco flock just south of Bellevue. It gave us a run for our money, but eventually joined a second bird feeding on an open grassy patch not too terribly far away; one was an adult, the other a white-chinned first-winter bird. Hope we get to see more of this incredibly charismatic Zonotrichia!

Sorting gulls this morning at Carter Lake, Iowa, we were startled by the sudden appearance of an adult Peregrine Falcon, which flashed past us to land on a hapless Killdeer. It took off with its squirming prey, only to find itself beset by a brash immature Herring Gull, which chased it acrobatically until it dropped the Killdeer, which flew a short distance and dived into the water, only to be plucked from the surface by a 3rd-year Bald Eagle! The eagle landed in the shallows and plucked and consumed the plover. What a way to go!

Fontenelle Forest, in Bellevue, Nebraska, has always held a special place in my birding heart; I grew up in a house at its southern edge, and the place and the people I met there are what made me a birder. One of my favorite experiences as a young birder was to arrive there early on a snowy morning.

I arrived just after a lackluster sunrise today; snow still lay deep and heavy, and the cold and the quiet recalled long-ago days when I could sneak out before school, hoping to be the first to break new snow and to add my tracks to those of the woodland creatures.  I was greeted by familiar voices, Tufted Titmice chanting from the trees, Wild Turkeys gobbling from the slopes, and Fox Squirrels churring and chucking in the tree tops. A pair of Carolina Wrens buzzed at me from a brush pile, finally giving me great looks; they are one of those birds whose warm colors are best appreciated against a snowy background. I was hoping most for Red-headed Woodpecker, and sure enough, it wasn’t long before one revealed itself, at first huddled silent against a snag, then growling faintly as it swooped to a lower perch nearby. Just like old times.