Greg Breining

Skip to Content Area From the Autumn 2025 issue of Living Bird magazine. Subscribe now. As Nebraska photographer Michael Forsberg shot thousands of photos of Sandhill Cranes, he would occasionally see migrating Whooping Cranes mixed in with the large flocks of sandhills. Alabaster white in contrast to the dusky sandhills and taller by a foot, the Whooping Cranes popped from the scene as if they were beacons. To see one “changes you,” Forsberg says.

From the Autumn 2023 issue of Living Bird magazine. Subscribe now. Sarah Sortum has a photo of her grandparents receiving a conser­vation award in 1973 for planting trees across their ranch in the eastern Nebraska Sandhills. “In my grandparents’ generation they were really encouraged by conser­vation programs to plant trees,” says Sortum, who now helps run that same family-owned acreage, known as the Switzer Ranch. “Remember, this is the Arbor Day state.

From the Autumn 2023 issue of Living Bird magazine. Subscribe now. Sarah Sortum has a photo of her grandparents receiving a conser­vation award in 1973 for planting trees across their ranch in the eastern Nebraska Sandhills. “In my grandparents’ generation they were really encouraged by conser­vation programs to plant trees,” says Sortum, who now helps run that same family-owned acreage, known as the Switzer Ranch. “Remember, this is the Arbor Day state.