It was not difficult to hear the excitement in Nancy Merrill’s voice late Tuesday morning as she talked about capturing the arrival of one our areas most anticipated babies on the Crane Camera. These nesting cranes were photographed in the spring of 2021.
Colorado Crane Conservation Coalition board member Barry Kaplan said the organization’s efforts to install a camera near where a pair of greater Sandhill cranes normally nests in Northwest Colorado is paying off this spring.
“We’ve got some things on film that we’ve never seen before,” said Kaplan, who has been heavily involved with the cameras as a board member and a member of the coalition’s education committee. “Nobody’s ever done this before. To our knowledge, we are the first to do this kind of a camera and have live streaming.”
He said there are plenty of cameras streaming osprey, hawk and eagle nests, but he said he has not seen any focused on cranes. He said this camera began capturing rarely seen moments almost as soon as the cranes arrived at the site, which is located on private land in the Yampa Valley.