Breakfast With The Cranes

At about 6:30 every morning, the weird, gargling calls would start. Since my tent was only about fifty yards from the lake, they would wake me. I'd smile and listen for a minute or two before getting up and taking a camera through the trees to the beach, to visit with them. Every morning, we'd spend twenty or thirty minutes together. During the week I was there, they grew accustomed to seeing me, and learned I was not a threat. Moving very slowly and carefully, I was eventually allowed to approach quite closely.

Sandhill cranes are fascinating creatures. Among the oldest species of birds still living, they have walked the earth for more than two million years. Their call certainly sounds prehistoric and eerie. and watching a large migrating flock of them flying high above is thrilling. They are tall, and wingspans can be six feet or more. Their bright orange-red eyes will stare directly at you with a look of intelligence. They are numerous in the marshlands here in Ohio, although I hear them more often than see them, as their loud call travels great distances across the open marsh.

This fine specimen was my morning companion on a camping trip in Florida last spring. Some days there would be two of them, presumably a mating pair, and I had the privilege of sharing the beach area beside a small lake, watching them strut back and forth on the sand, or in the shallow edge of the water, dipping down to snack on seeds and vegetation, or perhaps an occasional crustacean. On the open beach, I was in plain view, but they quickly grew to accept my presence, and by moving slowly, at an oblique angle so as not to appear threatening, I could get within just twenty feet, to observe closely and capture pictures of them in action.