Sandhill Cranes

The Monster Lens arrived today! I stuck it on the camera right away and pointed it at a downy woodpecker that was visiting the suet on the Norway Pine. It weighs a ton (the lens, not the woodpecker), I'm going to have huge arm muscles if I try to use it without a tripod. And I'm not sure that my tripod is sturdy enough for it.

But anyway. We went to Crex Meadows in the afternoon to see the Sandhill Cranes on their fall migration. We were not sure if they would be there yet - it's still early - but sure enough, they were. Crex Meadows is a surreal landscape at the best of times, flat like the plains of Africa and dotted with tall, spindly red oak trees, but add hundreds of cranes, and their strange prehistoric cries and you truly have a sight to behold.

About an hour or so before sunset, they start to arrive, huge V-shaped flocks, calling to each other across the wetlands. They have spent the summer in Canada and the subarctic and they are on their way to Florida (come to think of it, quite a few Canadians to this). The cranes in the picture were part of a larger flock that were feeding along side a flock of Canada geese. Mostly they kept their heads down in the grass, but something alerted them and they all popped up at once.

Hunting is allowed at Crex Meadows, but cranes are a protected species. However, this may soon change. I understand that farmers don't like the cranes eating their corn and that duck hunters are responsible for the conservation of large areas of wetlands that have enabled the birds to flourish. But it is bizarre to visit a wildlife refuge that turns out to be not much of a refuge at all.

At Crex Meadows in Grantsburg, WI. Hand held with the monster lens.