In Colorado’s San Luis Valley, Jenny Nehring longs for this time of year, when her eyes look to the big sky and the big birds flying en masse against the Sangre de Cristo peaks, snow-capped and glowing from the rising and setting sun. 

“That never gets old,” Nehring says. 

Around her home in Monte Vista, the sandhill cranes are back.

Along their migration, thousands of them stop for the San Luis Valley’s nutritious wetlands and barley fields. And they will be celebrated this weekend during the 43rd Monte Vista Crane Festival, the three-day festival of tours and events that Nehring, the local biologist, looks forward to every year. 

She is joined by fellow admirers who flock with the cranes now through March, before their migration continues.

“They are captivating,” says Megan Karschner, executive director of the Colorado Crane Conservation Coalition. “They have this ability to really hook people.” 

And to make us want to learn more. 

Their Colorado range 

The Rocky Mountain population of greater sandhill cranes — as the subspecies is known that winters around New Mexico and Mexico and journeys now toward breeding grounds in the greater Yellowstone area — makes stops in the state beyond the San Luis Valley. 

Karschner’s coalition is based in northwest Colorado’s Yampa Valley, where the nonprofit celebrates the return of cranes in early March. They are known to stay and breed through the summer in Routt and Moffat counties. 

Nehring points to another “hot spot” in western Colorado: around Delta, where she says thousands of cranes have been counted over recent winters. Similar to the San Luis Valley’s barley, “there’s a lot of corn grown there around Delta and Olathe, so it’s another food source,” Nehring says.

On the northeast plains, along the South Platte River to Nebraska, it’s not greater sandhill cranes that are occasionally seen, but rather lesser sandhill cranes. They are the hunted cranes known as the “ribeye of the sky.”

Their ancient ways 

Colorado Parks and Wildlife refers to the sandhill crane as “a living dinosaur,” citing fossil records dating back 9 million years. How long have they been visiting the San Luis Valley? A petroglyph on a rock wall hints at thousands of years. 

Just as ancient are their calls — “unforgettably loud trumpeting,” which CPW notes “can be heard for miles.” That’s thanks to “a modified windpipe that has been likened to a French horn.” 

Just as unforgettable: when they flap their wings as wide as 7 feet and leap from their long legs in a common act known as “dancing.” It’s a common act between male and female — “part of finding a mate,” Nehring says. “It’s also just reinforcing that bond.” 

The bond lasts a lifetime (possibly 20-30 years). Cranes are famously monogamous. 

But it seems the dancing is not only romantic. 

“I’ve watched a bachelor flock out in a wheat field, just out foraging,” Karschner says, “and then all of a sudden one of them just gets the itch, and he starts kicking up his heels and tries to get his buddies into it.” 

Their family life

A female might lay two eggs, and unlike other birds, the male helps with incubation. Karschner has had an up-close view over the years; the Colorado Crane Conservation Coalition has trained livestream cameras on nests, as viewed on YouTube.

“They’re really dutiful parents. They’ll take shifts and come and relieve each other,” Karschner says. “Sometimes they have a quick exchange, sometimes it takes a little longer and they both lovingly tend to the nest. Others are more mechanical about it and they’re like, I’m out, I’ve been waiting for you for hours.”

Both parents defend the nests against egg-snatching predators, such as coyotes, foxes and weasels.

“They are very formidable birds,” Nehring says. They are known to chase and flap their wide wings, flare their claws and weaponize their bill like “a spear,” she says.

They have other defense mechanisms at their marshy nests, Karschner explains: “They’ve got gray feathers, but often they look reddish or brown. That’s because they take that iron-rich mud of wetlands and they paint their feathers, so they can blend in while they’re sitting on the nest. They’re camouflaging against predators.”

From those two eggs, they are born with that camouflage color. The two hatch “two to three days apart, and the older one is often aggressive to its sibling,” according to CPW. “The parents keep the youngsters separated by walking apart; each adult is followed by one of the chicks.”

Chicks are also called “colts,” for their colt-like legs that quickly grow with the rest of their bodies.

“They gotta be big enough to make that big southern migration by the end of the summer,” Karschner says.

If you go

The Monte Vista Crane Festival runs March 6-8, with several ticketed workshops, talks and tours. The Craft and Nature Fair will be held each day at the Ski Hi Complex. More information at mvcranefest.org

Now through March, before the cranes continue their migration, Monte Vista National Wildlife Refuge is considered the best place for viewing. You can also drive freely around Alamosa National Wildlife Refuge.

Around sunrise and sunset, cranes fly between roosts. Throughout the afternoon, they mostly “loaf” in the fields. For maps and more viewing information, go to mvcranefest.org/plan-your-visit