By Harold Reutter
harold.reutter@theindependent.com

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Independent/Jon Helgason Richard and Nancy Morgan of Sioux City, Iowa watch Sandhill Cranes from The Platte River Whooping Crane blind on the Platte River. The Morgans and their grandson Alex took photos of the first confirmed Whooping Cranes in Nebraska this season. Independent/Jon Helgason David and his son Phillip Sears of Indianapolis, Indiana spot Sandhill Cranes through binoculars. Phillip wanted to see the Cranes on his spring break so the father and son took the Sunset Blind Tour. Click Thumbnails to View

Seifert said 3,541 people signed in either at the main office, the caboose or the temporary visitors center at Exit 305, which is where Crane Meadows was located and which has a Travel Centers of America.

But she believes as many as four times that number stopped, but did not bother to sign in.

Mike Swanson, restaurant manager for Travel Centers of America, said he knows the visitors center did not catch all the crane watchers.

He noted that people stopped by Travel Centers of America before the volunteers arrived for the day. Especially as the days lengthened, tourists also began showing up at Travel Centers of America after 6 p.m.

Swanson said people at Travel Centers of America tried to make sure that people still got information about the cranes even if the booth was not manned.

He said having Crane Meadows closed was not a good situation as far as people who knew about it and were looking to get some information on crane watching from Crane Meadows.

Swanson said Seifert and her staff and the volunteers they recruited deserve a lot of credit for helping crane watchers when they stopped at that location.

People who did sign in at the Convention and Visitors Bureau's various locations showed that crane watching remains popular for many travelers from all across the United States and the world.

"We had people from all but three states and the District of Columbia," said Seifert, who said the three missing states were Delaware, Hawaii and New Hampshire.

She said there were visitors from five Canadian provinces, as well as 18 foreign countries, including Japan, Australia, Holland, Spain, Germany, Peru, Belarus, Malaysia, Turkey, Uganda, China and England.

She noted that one local farmer let the Convention and Visitors Bureau use his blind for crane watching and that the bureau also partnered with the Whooping Crane Habitat Maintenance Trust to use that organization's blinds for crane watching.

She said a total of 270 people went on 48 tours. A total of 14 people volunteered as guides to lead those 48 tours, with three of those volunteer guides also leading four motorcoach tours. Those 14 people put in a total of 217 volunteer hours.

Another 26 volunteers will have put in 504 volunteer hours staffing the bureau's booth at I-80 exit 305 by the time the crane season ends, Seifert said.

The volunteers were a big reason why the crane season was successful, she said.

Seifert said the bureau printed 832 different kinds of crane brochures, including a six-page field guide, a two-page blind and driving etiquette guide for crane watchers; a seven-page guide called "Notes on Wildlife," which covered other kinds of wildlife people were likely to encounter as they went crane watching; and an eight-page crane packet.