The Crane! The Crane!

We had a leisurely lazy start to our Saturday, so it was already after 10.30 and I was half-dressed in the bathroom when there was a knock on the door - and then the doorbell rang. It was Phyllis and Molly and while Molly tried to jump through the storm door, P. was telling me how she saw two cranes at Beaver Tree. Cranes! In early March!
So, I talked the Beloved into taking me there :)
The wind was howling, the snow came down sideways and I traipsed through undergrowth and fought with thorns. And I found 3 geese, 2 swans and a cluster of hysterical ducks. No cranes.
"City girl", I said, to myself. "That silly Chicago-born Phyllis probably thought the swans were cranes!"*
But then I remembered the details she mentioned - the red patch, the black wingtips. They really were cranes, but like the wild turkeys she encountered a few months ago - they had disappeared by the time I got my butt in gear.

When I got back to the car the Beloved said: "You should keep your phone on you for emergency crane spottings!"

They were spotted in a corn field close by. So, on we went, and P. was waiting for me and together we trespassed and waded through the cornfield in the blinding snow. And sure enough; there they were. And sure enough, they flew away as soon as they spotted us :)


It's only 12.30 and I've really had all the excitement I can handle but I'm still going to scrub the kitchen floor. Good times. Good times.



ps. If I had been a real photographer I probably would have done a closer crop, and left the far right bird out. But I'm not. And this photo looks how it felt to stand there and watch them take off. Like a fairy tale. Which makes this easily one of my top ten Blips :)




* I told her this later. She almost fell over laughing.