In Nebraska: A Joyful Spring Racket

The Moeller farm on Mormon Island, Neb., lies right in the path of the central flyway, a great avian migratory route that runs from central Mexico to eastern Siberia. Through it each spring pass 560,000 sandhill cranes, 9 million ducks and geese, more than 500 bald eagles, 104 piping plovers, 110 least terns and 96 of the world's remaining population of 171 whooping cranes. Few bird watchers are lucky enough to spot the latter along their 2,500-mile flight from the Gulf Coast of Texas to Canada's Northwest Territories. They are secretive, and they travel in small groups. But no one in...

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