Nature can be cruel.

CODE RED! UPDATE:

For those that have been following along I have some good news! . . . it appears the leg injury the young sandhill crane sustained three weeks ago has mostly healed and is now likely to make it. After a week or so of having to hop on one leg in order to move, fear for its survival -- predators and starvation were real possibilities. But, its parents, the adult birds, saw to it that their little one would survive. Several times we witnessed the adult birds bringing food to their baby -- grubs, nightcrawlers, mice, etc. After that first week of hopping on one leg the juvenile crane was able to put a little weight on the leg and limp along. It has been getting incrementally better each day with the limp almost undetectable today. In the photo below one of the adults caught and killed a field mouse under the fence and has brought it over for its young to feast on.

In this upside-down world good news is indeed welcome. Looks like he will be strong enough to make the fall flight.

good for the young bird and his faithful parents....charlie

THE CRANES ARE BACK!

THE CRANES ARE BACK!

Our neighborhood nesting pair of Sandhill Cranes arrived today for the 13th consecutive year of bringing their brand of excitement to the neighborhood. This pair of said-to-mate-for-life Sandhill Cranes were exactly two weeks late in arriving this year, but we can't blame them, our backyard and their cattail marsh nesting grounds are still frozen up solid . . . but it shouldn't be long. If their history holds true, we'll see the usual one or two babies sometime around mid-May.

Here are three pics from today, just after their return and our getting reacquainted rendezvous:

Wow, that’s great! And deer on the other side of the fence.





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When you feed them by hand are they gentle with those long beaks. Thomas

Yes, the adults are gentle and quite careful. They zero in on each kernel of corn with precision, the young colts aren't quite as accurate, however; they are gentle as well.

If we have friends over when the cranes saunter in looking for a snack and they would like to see them being fed, I will usually feed them by hand myself. If the friends are first timers at hand feeding and would like to give it a try, they will usually do so with some apprehension, but that apprehension goes away after the first couple of kernels are snatched up by the cranes.

just wow.....charlie

You've heard the phrase .... "What a difference a day makes!" …. Well, our feathered friends must be singing the same tune today. Yesterday the mallards were doing what they do in the rain and newly found melted ice. Then, today the Sandhills are sloshing through the slush after the rain changed over to a few inches of heavy wet snow overnite. (You can actually see their tracks left in the slush.)

It must be April!