It's Cranemania around here!

[Keith Sirmans]

Thank you for this!

[Wild Skies]

Our neighborhood Sandhill colts are now approximately 60+ days old and we've witnessed them taking short flights. We live at the south end of a cul-de-sac and these colts, being carefully watched by their parents, are now taking flight right from the end of the street in front of our house and flying about 1/2 way up the block to the north where a neighbor has a pair of metal Sandhill figurines in his front yard where they're landing. They then are taking off from there and flying back down the street to the end of the cul-de-sac. I would guess that within the next couple of days they'll be graduating to full flight training.

Here's a YOUTUBE video depicting what we've been witnessing the past couple of weeks around here. I of course, didn't do the video, but a lady named Nina Faust did a very nice job of chronicling young Sandhills learning to fly near Homer, Alaska in this video.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7hf8Yzu17o8

[Wild Skies]

Nature can be cruel -- we can't change that . . . it is what it is.

My wife and I witnessed nature's cruelty involving our neighborhood family of cranes tonight that was quite disturbing and emotional. In the pic below you are seeing what's left of a baby cottontail rabbit being shredded by one of the adult Sandhills. The baby rabbit was in our front yard minding its own business and trying to make itself invisible when the family of four cranes sauntered in, identified what was on the lawn and immediately zeroed in on the defenseless little rabbit. Both adults were on the baby rabbit like heat-seeking-missiles running after and chasing down the baby rabbit, stabbing it repeatedly with their stiletto-like beaks and tossing it in the air like pizza chefs until the baby rabbit took its last breath. They then shredded the rabbit into bite-sized pieces and fed their two young colts which are just off camera to the right.

Yes, nature can be cruel -- we can't change that . . . it is what it is.