My wife and I went to Gibbon, Nebraska, last weekend to view the migrating cranes. The last thing I expected was a reminder of the devastation in Japan.
Yet the moment I walked into the Rowe Sanctuary, there it was: a six-foot-high stand of paper cranes. My mind leaped back twenty years to a time when I was a United Press International correspondent in Japan. UPI sent me to Hiroshima for the 45th anniversary of that city's destruction under the heel of an atomic bomb. There I met Eleanor Coerr, author of Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes, which tells the tale of a girl made fatally ill by the bomb's radiation who tries in vain to stave off death by folding origami cranes.
Today, millions of Japanese face not only immense loss and incalculable grief but also fear of another nuclear catastrophe. A campaign is underway to offer comfort via origami. In that moment when I unexpectedly met up with paper cranes on the Great Plains, my heart went out to all of Nippon.
Yet, soon we were off tramping along a trail through the buffalo grass on our way to a blind by the river. There, we witnessed a sight that might somehow bring a measure of comfort to the Japanese and all who care for them.
The cranes -- mostly Sandhills, but with a few of the Whooping species mixed in -- gather by the hundreds of thousands along the banks of the Platte River each spring on their great migration from the South to Alaska and Siberia. During the day they feed voraciously on the gleanings of corn in the surrounding fields. They must add about a fifth to their weight in a few weeks to fuel their flight to the north.
As the sun drifts into the river and dusk begins to fall, the birds take flight. At first, they come as single scouts, then in family groups, long lines, and large, v-shaped cohorts. They fly upriver, wheel and return, looking for the ideal place to roost. They sing unceasingly, in an odd percussive warble.
As we gaze through the windows of the blind, we can see why they don't land right away. Three bald eagles stand watch in a tree across the shallow river. Before long, though, the cranes overcome the odds of that any one of them will fall victim to a predator. In their thousands they blur the darkening the skies, creating undulating waves in the fabric of the night. As the leading edge comes about, we watch in wonder as it sweeps through a seemingly solid wave of oncoming cranes. No collisions result, not even as the dusk turns to darkness.
Although these sights are astounding, it is the sound that makes this a truly amazing experience. At a distance, the cranes sound like the roar of a football stadium. Closer, they are more like a Gamelan orchestra in flight. The rhythm of their cries reminds some in the blind of chattering monkeys (said to be the original inspiration for Gamelan!) You can watch and hear the spectacle via Rowe's crane cam.
At last, with the fading of the light, they settle in along the shallows of the river. (Presumably, eagles don't hunt at night.) There isn't room on the sandbanks and snags for all the cranes, so many pass the night with their legs plunged in the icy waters of the Platte.
In the morning, as the sun breaks over the plains, they shake off the frost, spread their wings and begin the cycle all over again. And here we too come full circle.
Of all the symbols of Japan, the crane has always moved me most. Its long, sinuous lines capture an elegance and melancholy that are both part of that nation's character. But after watching the cranes hunker down in their multitudes, I see they stand for something else besides: endurance.
That, too, is part of the Japanese national character. Some of those now huddled in makeshift shelters with little food and no heat have already endured almost unimaginable hardships as the result of natural disaster, economic depression, misrule, and ill-judged war. They and their children not only endured but rebuilt Japan from its ruins to become a peaceful paragon for all of Asia.
Like the crane, they will soar again, but not without enduring pain and sorrow. In the meantime, those of us who look on must do what we can to help.