Tuesday, February 9, 2016

New Egypt 2/9--Sandhill Cranes

Sandhill Cranes, New Egypt
Three years ago, Shari & I went out to the New Egypt cattle fields in search of Sandhill Cranes and found the Northern Lapwings instead, so I have both sentimental and proprietary feelings about those fields. For the couple of years, I've ventured out there, never coming up with anything exciting. The cranes seemed to disappear. However, this weekend they were back. Where have they been?

Snow Geese
I took a ride out there yesterday and missed them by about a half hour, according to other reports. Today, feeling restless, I drove out again, even though I saw a report from early in the morning where the birder had not seen them. For whatever reason, afternoon is when they are feeding in the big field next to the cattle pasture (if you can call a field of mud a "pasture"). There was a huge flock of Snow Geese in the field, so I got out my scope, started scanning from right to left and when I got almost to the end of the field, there they were, 3 cranes, not the 2 that had been there in 2013. Are these the parents and an offspring, or 3 new cranes? No way to know, but it is great to have them back in the county. And just like 3 years ago, they keep their distance and are hard to photograph.

2 comments:

  1. Congrats on finally getting them!

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  2. Great! I never did see "ours" last summer, though was reliably told they had fledged a young.

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