Amongst the wee problems Mark and I endured recently was the deflation of a brand new tire on my car, and we took that as a sign that we shouldn’t drive anywhere for a while. So, we hunkered down and missed the annual sandhill Crane Fest held October 8-10, and took a week to build up the nerve to go off in search of the migrating sandhill cranes on our own. We drove 45 miles to a place said to be “near Bellevue, Michigan”, which isn’t near anywhere if you ask me. After driving around several curves and rolling hills, we drove right past the bread loaf-sized sign for the Baker Sanctuary, and stumbled upon a huge farm field covered with corn stubble and gray lumps our binoculars showed were sandhill cranes. We retraced our tracks, found the Baker Sanctuary parking area where there were exactly two cars. There were two young girls sitting on a nearby picnic table who told us that if we followed the trail behind them, we’d surely see some sandhill cranes. Off we went, over hill and across wetlands, and right where the trail looped around, we saw the big open farm field we’d seen earlier. We crossed over part of the field and in no time, cranes crossed overhead en route to join their buddies in the field.
Small flock of sandhill cranes.
Here’s one zipping by.
Sandhill crane with the sun on its wings.
Unlike great egrets, which seem to flare their wings and drop their feet perhaps 15 feet from the trees they aim to land in, the sandhill cranes we watched flared their wings several hundred feet up in the air and rather fell from the sky.
Sandhill crane free falling to the ground.Getting closer.Nearing the landing, its wings looked blue.
It was awesome to watch, but the sun was going down and we were suddenly paranoid that a farmer with a gun would crawl out of the woods and use us as target practice. We beat-feet it off the farm field, returned to the parking area and found five cars and almost a dozen people standing around. A nice guy with a gray beard suggested that I step out into the nearby marsh and shoot photos away from the trees. Brilliant idea. In minutes, the cranes came in, right over our heads.
A flock flies right overhead.
While wave after wave of cranes came in from the southeast, coming from the northwest was a gigantic flock of blackbirds.
A mass of blackbirds.
It was only because of the blackbirds that I noticed the moon was out. I had seconds to capture the only flock of sandhills that flew across the moon.
A split second shot.The final shot of the evening.
All in all, our adventure turned out just fine. Encouraged, we set out again last night. This time, we went to the Kiwanis Youth Areas, where Crane Fest was held. This time, the moon was full.
