[Wild Skies]

Somewhat similar in appearance, but not related to the Sandhill Crane is a new visitor to our backyard is this Great Blue Heron - a pleasant site on this 4th of July.

Update on the Sandhills: After arrival back to Wisconsin in mid-March from their wintering grounds our nesting pair of Sandhill Cranes were on-the-nest for the month of April, only one of the pair was seen. By mid-May when we we would typically see the pair parading their little babies around the neighborhood, but this season nothing. The nesting apparently unsuccessful. We don't know what happened...we had a teriffic hail storm, our neighborhood were in the epicenter of up to 1.75" diameter hail that went on for 20 minutes -- every house in our neighborhood is getting new roofs, siding, etc. So, were the Sandhill babies a casualty of the hail, a preditor or some other shark lurking in their world?