Optimal Locations for photographing Grand Island/Kearney migration?

I'll be stopping in the Grand Island/Kearney area in the next couple days to photograph the cranes and other migrating birds for several days.

I haven't been there previously, and it looks like the area is at least 50 MILES long, so I'm hoping folks in here can provide me with information on locations what would be optimal rather than driving back and forth repeatedly.

Or, are there information sources in the Grand Island/Kearney area that would be able to provide good, specific location information for photography?

I was there a couple of years ago and wish I could remember exactly where I went, but there is a bridge across the river somewhere between the two towns that was a halfway decent location. Halfway. The birds there are very wild and won't go near a road when grazing in the fields. Wish I could be more specific -- there is a nature reserve along the river in that area that was so-so.

Rowe Sanctuary, SE of Kearney. They had evening viewings of the nighttime fly-in from blinds but it was WAY dark by the time that started arriving. I think it was Lowell Rd, a little E of Rowe that wasn't bad. Parking areas and you can get a decent river view.

My experience is similar to Diane's. Mostly I just drove around the back roads looking for cranes and places to park the car. Cranes were easily spooked. I had better success with Snow geese as they congregate in ponds and lakes, some that you can drive to. But it was all just by chance which made the visit as a photographic experience unpredictable. Good luck. Maybe you'll discover a great place.

I was up there a couple of years ago as well. There are farm roads that you can take to get closer to the cranes in the fields during the day. The public viewing areas were pretty packed with folks and the only cranes I saw were flying fairly high along the Platte. There is a truck stop at the interstate exit at Grand Isle and there you will find a nice lady in a caboose with loads of information on the cranes in the area. She pointed me to a nice spot that was a few miles south of the information center that had good viewing of cranes in the fields. Pretty challenging area to photograph.

Thanks for the replies...

It sounds like this will be very unpredictable. Lots of driving around, hoping to find spots and birds and such. But, it's on the way home, so it's no big deal to hang around for a couple days and see if I can find anything extraordinary. I thought it would be more like the places in Florida where there's a lot of information about where the birds are and it's fairly predictable. But, I"ll see what I find.

Let us know what you find!

Well, so far since arriving yesterday I've found cold, heavy overcast, wind from they north at up to 30 mph, fog, sleet, rain, and now snow........

At the moment I'm hunkered down waiting for the weather to improve...

There are cranes in the fields, but so far I haven't found any good water spots for snow geese or pelicans.

I can deal with the cold, but i need sun!

We had the same experience a couple of years ago. Maybe normal spring weather there.

Had come from FL and kept finding ourselves watching out for alligators down on the cold, bleak river.

OK, after 4 days, I now realize this is not a well-organized migration... If you're used to places like Bosque del Apache, the Texas Birding Coast, or ANYWHERE in Florida like Sanibel, Ding-Darling, Titusville, or any of the the well known places for bird photography, you're probably NOT going to be impressed.

I'm based in Kearney, so I've ventured about 25 miles toward Grand Island... As near as I can tell you have:

A couple visitor's centers that can point you to fields, but don't appear to have any information on getting to the river to shoot without at least 500mm of lens.

An SRA, where for $5 per day you can enter.

An Audubon that for $25 will pack you in a bus and stuff you in a blind. If you're a photographer they'll impose a bunch of limitations so you don't disturb THE BIRD WATCHERS... For example, you can't use continuous mode BECAUSE MAY POTENTIALLY BOTHER THE OTHER PEOPLE SQUEEZED INTO THE BLIND. And, of course, you can't move or allow your camera to "impose" on anyone else's space so you don't bother anyone looking through a binocular. You can USE a tripod but you can't open it enough to stabilize a long lens 'cause it MIGHT bother someone else. Very photographer unfriendly.

OR, for $200 (yes that's 2 HUNDRED dollars) you can get to a photography blind...

A LOT of roads, fields, paths, byways, fields, and other access areas blocked by gates and "no trespassing" signs.

As near as I can tell, there's NOWHERE to get to the river to photograph the birds up close. Even the Audubon center blocks the path behind their visitor's center because it MIGHT get close to the river where there MIGHT at some point be a bird.

It's fun to photograph birds in corn fields, but after a couple days that's enough... By April there were no snow geese, and apparently the nearest pelicans are 60 miles away......

So, if you've never photographed the crane migration, and just want to go for the fun of it, cool. But, if you're an experienced bird photographer, I'd suggest going to places that are far more interested in having photographers than these folks appear to be...

Hi David - I'm a little late to the party. Sorry I missed your posts earlier. I was in Nebraska a couple of years ago and had a great experience. It was sunny, calm and cold. I got an evening and morning group blind at two different locations through the Crane Trust Nature and Visitor Center near Alda, NE (http://www.nebraskanature.org/). I think it was about $25. At the time they were very photographer friendly and had no issues other than being a bit cramped in one of the blinds. Another good evening location is the bridge over the river on Lowell Road south of Gibbon, on the south side of the river. There is a large viewing/photo platform facing west and another that faces Northeast that might be good in the morning. Of course timing is everything. I got there when the Sandhill Cranes were abundant.

A few of my photos here -http://www.brucegmckeephotos.com/1/post/2012/03/sandhill-cranes-in-nebraska.html

- Bruce

Bruce, that sounds like a much more workable option... "Photographer friendly" is important if you're using large equipment........

Yup, I spent both a sunset and a 2 sunrises on the Lowell bridge......... At sunset, with 700 mm in DX mode, you could get very tiny birds where they were coming in way upstream.
At sunrise, one day the birds came toward the platforms, and if you could avoid the huge pylons of large wires, there were shots that were pretty good. On the other day, the
birds went from FAR upstream, north and south, and nothing came anywhere near the platforms.

I don't know what it's like in Grand Island - I went through on my way north, but I didn't see any birds, anywhere over there while passing through...