Watching Thousands of Sandhill Cranes

November 12, 2006
Happy Birthday Shawn.

The day started early with the sound a large truck making donuts in the parking lot, tossing beer cans about and shining spot lights in our windows. Will called 911 and was talking with them. The truck sped away.

Light filled the sky and so did the sound of thousands of Sandhill cranes. We watched as they took off in long strings, vee formations and clusters of hundreds. We walked down to the spit and watched, looked at them closely through binoculars and as the sound subsided we walked back to the Roadtrek for coffee and breakfast.

Later in the morning we walked again. This time out we walked a dirt road that lead around the lake. We came to a spot where we could get above the tall grasses and see the cranes. They were coming back from their morning graze time. New ones were coming too. The came in groups of hundreds, or groups of two. They fell from the clouds, circling downward. As they approached their landing area they dropped their legs and plopped onto the shore with other birds that were all moving around trying to find the right spot and yelling about it the entire time. Maybe they were calling the others, telling them where to land.

Kathy made a yummy imitation crab salad with avocado for lunch. The day past and we walked out to the spit and watched the birds coming in and finding a spot to spend the night. We spotted a few small shore birds and looked them up in our book when we got back; they were least sandpipers. They finally quieted down and we went in for a movie.

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