In three weeks, Othello, Washington, will be celebrating its 19th Annual Sandhill Crane Festival. Thousands of serious and well-it’s-just-too-cool-to-miss birders will be observing, photographing, recording and discussing thousands of lesser sandhill cranes. These birds are among the noisiest, awkward-graceful, and dancingest birds on the planet. It will be something to see; one of my Basin buddies laughs that humans surrounded by cranes are “more noisy and dancy than the birds themselves.”
I was introduced to sandhills along the South Platte River some decades back. Buddy Rick said something like “Hey, let’s forget about hunting and fishing for a few days and take a run up into Nebraska. You’ll see giant beautiful birds dancing and singing and clumsy and graceful all at once. And we can get some pictures and maybe play a little poker in the camper over something on ice.” Having been on several of Rick’s wild goose chases, I had my doubts. Still, a weekend of camping, scotch, and blackjack was worth the risk. We made the three-hour night drive north from Denver.
I can still feel that next daybreak. I was stunned. Within a hundred yards was a noisy, boisterous sea of greater sandhill cranes. Over that weekend, we were within a football field of tens of thousands of them – flying, landing, bouncing, calling, bobbing, dancing and taking off. They were breathtakingly graceful and comically clumsy. They were before us and behind us and around us. A time or two, as they fell awkwardly from the sky, I’d have sworn they were going to land on my head. Raucously, they filled those early spring fields along the river.
And here comes a chance to do it all again.
The Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife has identified three subspecies of sandhill cranes in Washington. A few hundred greater sandhills (Grus Canadensis tabida) breed in Klickitat and Yakima Counties. Somewhere around 35,000 lesser sandhills (G. c. Canadensis) entertain us in eastern Washington during migration. Some 3,000-4,000 Canadian sandhills (G. c. rowani), with perhaps a few lessers and greaters in the mix, will stop on lower Columbia River bottomlands. As many as a thousand of the last group have been recently wintering there, but most of our Washington visitors winter in California. In Washington, sandhill cranes have been listed as threatened since 1981, although numbers have risen greatly.
As Big Bird Information Officer for the Reecer Creek Rod, Gun, Working Dog & Outdoor Think Tank Benevolent Association, I am required to provide the following. Sandhill crane’s scientific name is Grus canadensis. Sandhills are similar in plumage, but vary in size. They are slate gray birds with black legs, commonly with a rusty staining above. Adults have white cheeks with red skin on the crown. (Juveniles are gray and rusty, and without pale cheeks or red crowns). These are large, tall birds with long necks, long legs, and very broad wings. The round body tapers into a slender neck, and the stubby tail is covered by drooping feathers forming a sort of “bustle.” The bill is straight, and longer than the head. Most of our birds are lesser sandhill cranes. Greaters are slightly taller and a bit longer in the bill, leg and wingspan than our birds. Our lessers will weigh in at seven pounds or so and stand just under three and a half feet tall, with wingspans just over six feet. Add three or four pounds body weight and five or six inches to each measurement for the greater sandhill cranes. The Canadians are in between. Cranes fly with their necks outstretched. Once you hear that haunting “kar-r-r-o-o-o, kar-r-r-o-o, kar-r-r-o-o-o,” you will never forget it.
Our lessers are on their way to make babies in the Far North Country, and some greaters will remain in the lower 48 (including nesting pairs at Conboy Lake National Wildlife Refuge, south of Glenwood at the base of Mount Adams).Mostly, the larger birds breed in Central Canada and the northern tier of states.
Once the bonded pair settle into breeding country, they will build a bulky nest of dead sticks, moss, grass, reeds and whatever else they fancy and lay two four-inch buff/olive eggs, marked with olive and brown. After a month of incubation, the young cranes will hatch and be following their parents within a day. Like their parents, they will eat pretty much what is available, including aquatic insects and invertebrates, worms, small mammals, young birds and eggs, bulbs, berries, lichens, water plants and grains.
In fall, our lesser cranes will head to California – and a few to Mexico. Next spring, we’ll again celebrate their trip north.
Learn more about these amazing creatures. Find Steve Taylor (and many other) crane photos at www.pbase.com, or just put “sandhill cranes” into your search window. Check out Cornell University’s All about Birds site at www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Sandhill_Crane/id. Find a good nature guide. The “Washington Wildlife Viewing Guide” has places to find sandhill cranes. .
Go to the Basin and the Othello events; check out www.othellosandhillcranefestival.org or call 866-726-3445 for information.
Spring is coming. Go. Find sandhill cranes. Have a noisy, dancing, wing-waving good time.
