The Call of the Cranes

This is a guest post by Nancy Merrill, and the 2024 recipient of Bird Conservancy’s Richard G. Levad Award. 

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I first became interested in birds as a child growing up in suburban Chicago. I remember helping my father fill backyard bird feeders and pouring over Roger Tory Peterson’s A Field Guide to the Birds, trying to identify birds that came to the feeder.  As an adult, I continued the tradition of backyard birdfeeders at every home in which my husband and I lived.

My professional career was as a family therapist, and for most of my career, I worked out of my home. I strategically placed birdfeeders so I could observe bird action through the window while I listened and worked with clients. As you can imagine, this was sometimes distracting! When my youngest child left the nest, I finally had time to pursue my birdwatching hobby in more depth. I took classes, joined every birding organization in the Chicago area, and went on field trips.  This was when I truly fell in love with birds.

In the late 1980’s, our family began vacationing in Colorado.  We came for the skiing and stayed for the birds! In 1998 we purchased a property along the Yampa River in Hayden, Colorado that we hoped would be “birdy.” We undertook numerous projects to restore wetlands and cultivate native trees, shrubs and flowers. As it turned out, this property was not just “birdy” (more than 155 species, so far), but it also served as an important staging area for Rocky Mountain Greater Sandhill Cranes.  From late August through September, hundreds of cranes roosted in the river on our property and foraged in our fields. How lucky can a birder get!

In 2012, a proposal was put forth to allow a limited hunt of Sandhill Cranes in Northwest Colorado. My friend, Barb Hughes, and I decided we had to do something to try to stop the proposed hunt. Neither of us were what you would call activists, but this issue certainly activated us. At that time and still today, Greater Sandhill Cranes were classified as a Tier 1 species of concern in Colorado.  Barb and I co-founded Colorado Crane Conservation Coalition (CCCC). We circulated petitions, led letter-writing campaigns, attended meetings and mobilized birders, everyday citizens, and even hunters to oppose the proposal.  Eventually, the proposal was withdrawn, and in its place CCCC established the very first Yampa Valley Crane Festival.

That first festival, thrown together in a couple of weeks, was successful and has since become an annual four day event. This past Labor Day weekend, CCCC presented the 13^th Yampa Valley Crane Festival, with attendance at all events exceeding 3,000 people.  The festival attracts people from all over the United States and beyond. It serves to celebrate the presence of these iconic birds in Northwest Colorado and to educate the public about ongoing threats that cranes and other bird species face today.

In the process of planning the first festival, I connected with George Archibald, the co-founder of the International Crane Foundation (ICF). George encouraged me to join the board of ICF in 2014, and I served on that board for nine years. During that time, I traveled with ICF to China, Bhutan, Mongolia, Japan, Korea, Botswana and South Africa. Through these travels and my time on the ICF board, I gained knowledge about cranes, crane conservation around the world, and advocacy.

I also attended some amazing crane festivals in some exotic locations around the world. In 2019 I was invited to give a talk at the first Poyang Lake Birding Festival in China. As part of that festival, I also taught “crane dancing” to local school children in the area. I will be eternally grateful to George for his encouragement and support of my work.

Since 2012 I have served as president of CCCC. I have had the honor to work with dedicated board members, staff, volunteers and supporters to continually expand CCCC’s programming on behalf of crane conservation. In addition to the annual festival, CCCC sponsors an on-the-ground habitat improvement program called Crops for Cranes in which we work with willing farmers and landowners in the Yampa Valley to grow and leave grain crops for the cranes prior to their migration.   We offer crane and environmental education programs to school and community groups. We promote crane awareness through sponsoring various contests aimed at different age groups and through participating in community activities, such as the Steamboat Springs annual 4^th of July Parade. Every spring CCCC operates a live-streaming nest camera focused on a crane nest in the Yampa Valley. The nest camera serves both as an educational and a scientific tool.  Last year CCCC received more than 25,000 views of the nest camera and more than 13,000 views of the highlight videos made from the nest camera.

I never saw myself as someone who could make an impact on birds or the environment. Birds were my hobby, not my field of expertise or my profession. And for most of my life, I was certainly not an activist or an organizer.  But then the cranes found me, called to me, and I could not resist that call. In a divided world, I find that people can still come together around cranes and crane conservation. Along this conservation journey, I have met so many wonderful people that care about birds and the environment and are working to make a difference. They, and the cranes, inspire me to keep on going!

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This article was written by Nancy Merrill, who was the 2024 recipient of the Bird Conservancy’s Richard G. Levad Award.