Eagle Mania

For years Ken and I have been saying we wanted to take a trip to Nebraska's Platte River during the annual migration of the sandhill cranes. This year our schedule finally lined up and we headed for Grand Island last Sunday. 

It is a twelve to thirteen hour drive from here to our destination so we decided to do it in two days. The first night we stayed in Kimball, NE, which meant we had time to spare on day two in order to arrive at  Grand Island when we needed to that afternoon. We got up early and headed east, experiencing the amazing prairie sunrise pictured here. 

We knew nothing about the land we were in other than the information we garnered from a couple of brochures picked up at the hotel the previous evening. Based on those, we decided to exit the interstate at Ogallala and drive up to Lakes McConughy and Ogallala to see if we could spot any bald eagles. 

While the town of Ogallala seemed clean and friendly, we discovered that most people regard the lakes as a summer destination and knew little about eagle watching areas. So we drove on up the 7 miles to the dam and were happy to find a large information center. Unfortunately the person there told us we were probably too late as she had been told the eagles had already dispersed for the year. We decided to go see for ourselves and am I glad we did! She was correct that the eagles have left from Lake Ogallala but it seems they just went over the hill to the much larger Lake McConaughy. 

 In this photo you can see ten bald eagles. At one time I had close to fifty in my sights, all perched on the frozen lake.

 What the eagles were looking for, of course, was duck dinner. Below the dam and around open water the mergansers were plentiful.

We were so impressed by the sights on the Lake that we decided to stop in on our way home as well. Over the next few days I will cover the visit to Grand Island as well as some of the amazing experiences witnessed on our return visit to Lake McConaughy.