We were contacted in January 2025 by Andy Gossens from the International Crane Foundation in Nebraska about a curiously colored band on a Sandhill Crane. The prior spring on April 2, 2024, photographer Colleen Childers, was in a Crane Trust photography blind along the Platte River near Doniphan, NE observing a gathering of 10,000 Sandhill Cranes. She took several photos of the birds and noted a particular crane with a yellow band on the upper right leg labeled “1E5”, and a smaller metal band near the foot of the left leg. The band number was reported to the USGS Bird Banding Lab database, and it was discovered that this adult male crane was banded on July 26, 2006, making it at least 19 years old at the time it was sighted! But even more exciting was that this Sandhill Crane was banded here at Creamer’s Field Migratory Waterfowl Refuge! Sandhill Cranes are one of two species of large cranes in …