conserving rocky mountain greater sandhill cranes + their habitat through science + education

The Greater Sandhill Crane is an iconic species of the Yampa Valley in Northwest Colorado. Returning in the spring from wintering grounds in New Mexico and Arizona, cranes nest and raise their young in wetland areas throughout the valley.

LATEST NEWS >

CCCC co-founder Nancy Merrill honored with the Rich G. Levad Award:

Please join us in congratulating Nancy Merrill as the 2024 recipient of the Bird Conservancy of the Rockies’ Rich G. Levad Award! This award honors individuals who support the mission of conserving birds and their habitats through science, education, and land stewardship.

The award will be presented at A Night for the Birds, Friday, Oct. 18, 6-9 p.m.  Click here for tickets to the event!

Congratulations, Nancy!

 

Donor Recognition:

Thank you to the Yampa Valley Community Foundation for awarding CCCC a generous grant in the 2024-25 Community Grant Cycle. These funds help CCCC to continue to work on behalf of Sandhill cranes! We are grateful to the YVCF for their work to support important community efforts in the Yampa Valley. 

 

2024 Crane Viewing Locations:

Looking to observe Sandhill Cranes in the Yampa Valley on your own? The CCCC Crane Viewing Locations have been updated for 2024 and can be viewed here. 

YAMPA VALLEY CRANE FESTIVAL

Thank you for attending the 13th annual festival. We hope you enjoyed your time in the Yampa Valley! Save the date for the 14th annual festival:

August 28 – 31, 2025

View the 4th season of the Crane Nest Camera:

Our appreciation for the crane grows with the slow unraveling of earthly history. His tribe, we now know, stems out of the remote Eocene. The other members of the fauna in which he originated are long since entombed within the hills. When we hear his call we hear no mere bird. We hear the trumpet in the orchestra of evolution. He is the symbol of our untamable past, of that incredible sweep of millennia which underlies and conditions the daily affairs of birds and men.

– Aldo Leopold, Sand County Almanac