OFFICIAL VS MODELED
Nebraska Sandhill Crane counts
The observational anchor is the Crane Trust aerial abundance index. Platte Crane Live never relabels a between-survey estimate as an official or “live” count.
2016–2026 OBSERVATIONS + DAILY CLIMATOLOGY
Is this season early, normal, or late?
Dots are actual Crane Trust survey observations. Tap, click, hover or keyboard-focus any dot to see the date, count, uncertainty and provenance. Thin daily curves are interpolated context, not extra surveys.
What are the dots? They are real survey observations. Select a dot for its date, count and source. The smooth colored lines between them are interpolated only to show the seasonal shape.
Shaded band: historical 20th–80th percentile. Dashed line: daily historical median. Colored dots: observed surveys. Smooth colored lines: interpolated context.
How to read the numbers
Aerial survey values are population indices for the Central Platte survey corridor, not exact real-time censuses of every crane in Nebraska. Survey uncertainty and data age matter, especially during fast arrival or departure periods.