A Day with the Cranes

Paired for Life

From behind us, a rosy sun emerged above the stand of pines, glowing warmly on our backs and upon the breasts of the gathering birds, casting their gray feathers countless shades from icy white to slate blue, and lavender to silver. Growing steadily in size as more arrived from their overnight roosts in the marsh, the massing in the field stood around a shallow puddle, facing the warming rays, their red foreheads ablaze. Across the brightening sky, the stars stepped back and hundreds of tiny, dark specks became the long chains of the noisy birds, drawn to gather here each morning, and whose distant rattling calls began to fill the quiet of a cold, November dawn.

Ritual of the Dance

Those already on the ground danced and displayed, calling to their partners, standing with their young. While hundreds more dropped from the sky, joining the assembly from every direction. Out of perfectly synchronized spirals above the field, large groups turning as one, banking their 6-8 foot wingspans, landed--small parachutists floating gracefully to the grass. Then, they too, danced with their mate, this partner paired for life and tireless traveling companion. Barely heard between their constant calls, as the thousands of cranes filled Goose Pasture, was the airy whistle of the juvenile birds, this flight, their first of many.

The Arrival of One Hundred

Goose Pasture,
Jasper-Pulaski Fish and Wildlife Area

For several hours, birds continued to arrive--in pairs, small family groups and even great strings. Then forming large flocks facing the sun and with a few effortless steps, they took noisily to the air, flying low and calling out above the tower. We watched them leave for the surrounding fields, their necks stretched forward and black legs trailing, red foreheads brilliant in mid-morning sun, dancers' toes pointed, nails curled. They did not seem to mind the flurry of camera shutters, as all locked onto their steady orange eyes, and wide wings took them from view.

Greater Sandhill Crane, Grus canadensis, in flight

Flying off to the fields to feed

Later that day, we drove the nearby roads and easily spotted groups of them, standing in contrast to the dark, fertile soil, gleaning spilled corn from the expansive harvested fields, miles beyond Goose Pasture. Great flocks soared overhead reaching extreme heights, riding thermals, wing-to-wing as afternoon skies turned to blue.

To Soar

Those that remained in the pasture for the day lined the grassy edge of the narrow drainage ditch--stepping in for a great, splashy bath; stepping out and preening in the warm, mid-day sun. With their long, dark bills, they probed the tender ground, raked the tall grass snagging small tidbits--earthworms, insects, and a small mouse-like mammal, which, with its discovery, became the object of much envy. Cranes beside the shallow puddle dozed in a one-legged stance, head tucked behind a wing. An occasional flutter would erupt from the otherwise calm crowd, and the pairs of cranes danced once again, bowing and raising their bills.

Caring for those lovely feathers

"Whatcha find, a shrew?"

Adult and juvenile cranes

Two pairs dancing

Looking out across Goose Pasture and the thousands of cranes gathered there that afternoon, each one just a part of this great migration, I could not help but think back to my first crane sighting, just months before, while we traveled through northern Michigan.
How we struggled to find just the few, and reveled in catching a distant glimpse as they hurried out of sight, and hid themselves deep within the refuge.
How their hollow, rattled call in that vast, empty wilderness carried an almost melancholy air.

More than merely time between two places, I have come to understand that it is this great gathering together in migration that defines the Sandhill Crane.

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Sunrise of the Sandhill Crane

Sunrise
Jasper-Pulaski Fish & Wildlife Area
Medaryville, Indiana

We drove alone in the dark, down the straight, narrow roads of a small, rural community in northern Indiana, its massive fields of shortly cropped corn still covered in wisps of early morning fog. Aside from small blinking lights on distant towers and a scattering of stars above, the clear sky in total black on this day in late November had let every bit of yesterday’s warm afternoon escape.
Fueled with anticipation, I almost did not feel the cold.

Sandhill Cranes in predawn sky

It was a race to be the first—to arrive at this site before dawn and watch the gathering of the sandhill cranes. From their nighttime roosts in the nearby marshes, each morning at sunrise thousands of the large, migratory birds assemble in Goose Pasture of Jasper-Pulaski Fish and Wildlife Area, and then fly off to feed for the day in the harvested fields before returning to the pasture at sunset, and flying off again to the marsh.

The lot was empty as we pulled in.
Beyond a row of pines, I could see the grassy field and the shadowy form of the tall, wooden deck overlooking it, its weathered platform and long rails waiting for the day’s crowds to arrive. At the peak of the cranes’ 3 to 4 week stopover along this route of their southern migration, numbers can reach between 15,ooo and 30,000 birds. Predictably, birdwatchers arrive by the busload.
Dimming our lights and silently pressing the car doors closed, we assembled ourselves in the dark—jackets, hats, and mittens—and made our way quietly down the paved trail to the observation tower. A light covering of frost had been left on each stair, and in the predawn light I clung to the safety of the rail, feeling my way along, climbing carefully to the top.

Goose Pasture

As far as I could see, the pasture was still empty.
Fog hung in the low areas, curling around the bases of trees where the field met the woods in the distance. A small drainage ditch trimmed in tall grasses and filled with the white mist ran at an angle toward the back and broke the space into two sections, one, uncut and tangled brown; the other in front, short and green. Behind me, the starlit sky hinted of a pink dawn. A distant farmhouse sat quietly by, with windows softly glowing.
And from deep within the safe and grassy space, day began with the voice of a single sandhill crane.

return of the cranes at sunrise

(all photos click to enlarge)

Greater Sandhill Crane, Grus canadensis

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Birds on Ice

American Lotus summer bloom,
Cowan Lake

Days that warm to the forties and nights that dip to the twenties have left a thin layer of ice on the surface of Cowan Lake. The magnificent Lotus that reached and swayed above our heads last summer as we drifted past in our canoe, covering the water from shore to shore in this sheltered cove with broad, green rounds, now stand as brown stubble, fallen. Their recognizable faces peering at us through the sheerest of layers.

American Lotus leaf beneath ice

A large flock of small brown birds lands and wanders through the wasted brown tops which pierce the icy surface. With fine bills and buff-colored breasts, heavily streaked, they step and bob-- searching between the stems.
And skate easily along.
American Pipits, hidden well in this quiet, brown edge.

Where small boats dotted the open water with cheerful sails outstretched under the warm breezes of summer, a ring of gulls now stands—the ice extending from the edge, creating a new shoreline from which to watch and wait.

Sailboats on Cowan Lake,
summer 2008

Even the herons, with their long and lanky forms, stand easily upon it, snatching fish that carelessly slip out from under its protection.

In the chill of winter--
the waters, still,
the birds, busy.

Great Blue Heron fishing from ice,
Cowan Lake, January 2009

First Ice,
winter 2009

American Lotus blossom,
Nelumbo lutea

My Winter Woodpecker

Downy Woodpecker (male) and
Yellow-bellied Sapsucker (female)

Sunday was a sunny day and cold.
Against a bright blue sky and beyond frosted windows, we counted 8 woodpeckers, in bold black and white—drawn to the edge of the woods by seeds and suet. The most numerous and smallest, the Downy Woodpeckers, we see often and know well. And the Red-bellied, Hairy, and Pileated, in fewer numbers, often visit. These woods and the many dead and fallen trees provide the insects and nesting sites for these year-round residents of eastern North America.

But, it is not often that she visits us here, this migratory woodpecker who spends the warm summer months in Canada and eastern Alaska. In fact, only twice in the 16 years we’ve lived in southwestern Ohio, have we seen a Yellow-bellied Sapsucker.
Whether, on this day, she was just passing through to a more southern spot or arriving to spend the winter with us, I don’t know.
But I have a big box of suet cakes to see her through the coldest days ahead.

Yellow-bellied Sapsucker, Sphyrapicus varius,
feeding at Suet


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Of Flyways and Thruways (SWF)

The path is one of certainty.
A long, straight road, with few opportunities to escape—the trimmings bounding it edged, now, with field fencing sporting the bright orange drift guards of an upstate New York winter.
An otherwise gray drive in every way—from the concrete roadway, stained white with salt, to the thick clouds meeting snow-covered hills in the distance. And carrying, this time, a sadness that floods my mind with the many previous drives made over many previous years.


I have traveled the New York State Thruway countless times since leaving home for college thirty years ago, two figures waving from the driveway each time, as I left. Back and forth along its flat course from its eastern origin to its arrival in Buffalo, watching the foothills of the Adirondack Mountains dissolve into the wide, spreading land of the Niagara escarpment, and beyond. Measuring our progress in the passing of small river towns along the Mohawk, the smokestacks of industry, billowing. Until, curving southward at Lake Erie, past sloping hillsides planted in grapes, we reached Pennsylvania and Ohio. And made a new home.


With bags of snacks between us, and wrappings for winter weather stowed handily behind our seats, we left hugs and kisses, this time upon just one, and began, once again, the 12-hour journey, westward, to Ohio.
On this day, gazing mindlessly off into the gray, I saw large formations of geese crossing overhead, as never before. Their Vs shifting and sliding, as if drawn across by some unseen force, turning and tilting. One after another, in fluid strings of more than a hundred individuals.


And I watched, amazed at the sheer numbers in this unending dance that will, season after season, be performed.
The travelers above travelers—on Flyways and Thruways.

image credit: U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service

The Montezuma National Wildlife Refuge consists of over 7000 acres of wetland habitat in central New York State. It is situated "in the middle of one of the most active flight lanes in the Atlantic Flyway," and is cut in half by the NYS Thruway.

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