Our Roots&Shoots group went to see the Sandhill cranes at the Jasper-Pulaski Fish and Wildlife area near Medaryville, Indiana. The best time to see the cranes is either at dawn or dusk. It being a two hour drive, we chose dust. This is the time they come flying in from their day of eating to gather as a community. It was truly amazing to see - and to hear. According to the official crane counters, there were a minimum of 11,842 cranes there that day. Ground fog hindered an accurate count.
These are not small birds, they can grow to about 5 feet tall. I was disappointed they were gathering so far from the observation tower, but can't blame them for wanting distance from all the gawkers. There were also about 20 deer milling about - perhaps they have learned they can't be shot near the cranes? Best of all was to see was the lone whooping crane, standing so white against the grey background of the Sandhills.
It was a really cold day, especially for such low physical activity as watching the beautiful birds. We did see some of them dance, heard a lot of their amazing call and saw them flying directly over our heads. It was hard to capture with a digital camera's time delay, but we managed some good pictures. And this shaky video has the best example of the sound. As we were getting ready to leave, a great crowd of the cranes suddenly decided to fly off to the marsh. I wish I hadn't already packed up my camera at that point, the sound was startling and joyous.
2 comments:
Lovely to see them so close. Much closer then when they fly over our house with their odd warbling noise every year. Looks like it was a great field trip!
Yes, they fly so high! We've seen them fly over our house too - mostly we've heard them. This was a different experience. We were sad when they all flew off to the marsh for tne night. But I'm glad the marsh isn't open to the public - they need some privacy.
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