With springtime comes a beautiful dance along the Platte River, pairs gathering by the thousands, creating and strengthening their bonds for lifelong partnership. 

It is a season when sandhill cranes display what commitment can look like, what couples can aspire to. 

The male sandhill crane displays his desires for all to see: unashamedly, single-mindedly leaping and spinning for an audience of one, the crane raising his long wings, seven feet across, as he approaches the female. She spins, hops and moves closer, too. They coil their necks in a position that recalls Torvill and Dean entwined in their Sarajevo Olympic ice dance 40 years ago.

Male and female cranes both issue vibrating cries – call and response, and in unison – a rolling “r” sound through their long windpipes. Their song rises from the gut, echoes across the Nebraska landscape and joins the symphony of thousands. 

Male and female are both gray-bodied with crimson crowns. To our eyes, it may be difficult to differentiate between the pairs, until their performance begins. The male will hold his head and beak straight up, while the female’s will be angled lower. Her call will sound two notes to the male’s singular cry. Together, they will initiate a dance to establish their newfound bond.

The pairs will rejoice in each other as cranes have done for millennia. A fossilized crowned crane discovered at Ashfall Fossil Beds near Royal dates back more than nine million years, proof of an ancient pattern of visitation to this land.

Cranes pair up as early as age two. The annual spring visit to the Platte River, the largest congregation of sandhill cranes on earth, offers young and single cranes the opportunity to find a mate. Performances spread out across the river as the cranes call, bow and dance in pairs. 

These presentations are on display each spring as returning pairs reinforce their bonds and new pairs begin their first dance along the river. Nebraska is one stop along their journey to nesting grounds in Alaska, Canada and Russia. Most pairs can be seen returning the next year successfully fledging two young. 

This bond lasts a lifetime, an average of 20 to 30 years, reinforced every spring season along the Platte. When mates die, males remate quicker than females, but continue in the courtship and commitment to their new partner. 

These graceful displays have inspired human dances such as “The Crane,” as recorded by first century Greek philosopher Plutarch. Aboriginal tribes in Australia still perform a crane dance – spreading their arms then raising and lowering, the dancers spin around each other and mimic the crane’s call from deep in their throats.

Year after year, the Platte River will host this reunion of thousands of pairs and encourage this tradition to never end.