HORDES OF CRANES AND SNOWS

      Early each spring in North America, flocks of ducks, geese, swans, cranes, blackbirds and other kinds of birds migrate north.  But northbound sandhill cranes and snow geese form great, boisterous gatherings of themselves that surpass the dramatic numbers of other kinds of North American birds.  Hordes of long-legged sandhills spend nights in March and into early April on the mud flats and shallows of the Platte River in Audubon's Rowe Sanctuary in southcentral Nebraska.   Masses of snow geese daily come to and leave the 400 acre lake at the Pennsylvania Game Commission's Middle Creek Wildlife Management Area in southeastern Pennsylvania from about mid-February to around the middle of March.  And both these tremendous swarms of stately birds create unforgettable and inspiring spectacles that can be enjoyed, close-up, in person, or on computer screens via live cameras on those locations.  Sandhill cranes and snow geese have characteristics in common.  

     At a distance in the air, flocks of sandhills and snow geese, each kind in masses of its own making, and often in different areas, look like long, dark scribbles.  But those smudges get larger and larger as the masses of birds move across the sky, closer and closer to the fortunate observer.  Soon the great, constantly vocalizing, gatherings of both species sweep over their watery roosts several times as the handsome birds check below for potential danger to themselves.  If they don't spot danger, clouds of both types of birds swirl into the wind for flight control and descend closer to the water.  Soon the birds drop out of those clouds, bit by bit, like giant snow flakes, and looking like small parachutes, as they float down to the water.  That bird fall continues until the whirling clouds are empty and all the attractive cranes or snows are crowded on their watery roosts to rest, preen and socialize, loudly and continuously.  

     Sandhills and snows seem to do everything together, with their own relatives; safety in numbers.  Groups of birds, each species independent of the other, daily fly out to harvested corn fields to consume corn kernels on the ground.  Both Nebraska and southeastern Pennsylvania have many corn fields to choose from, offering plenty of food to these great masses of birds every day.  Group after group after group of each noisy kind of beautiful birds leaves the water into the wind for flight control and flies out on aerial highways to the chosen fields of the day, cranes in Nebraska and snows in Pennsylvania, for example.  When reaching those fields, each gathering of birds, in turn, again swirls into the wind and lands among acres of corn stubble until the fields are covered with birds.  Immediately each bird gobbles up corn kernels.  And when full, the cranes and snows leave their respective fields, gang after gang, into the wind, as usual, and fly back to their daily, watery resorts until they are hungry again.  

    Sometimes swarms of sandhills and snows lift off the water or ground in one big horde.  At those times, one end of the great mass rises like someone taking a blanket off a bed.  One end of the blanket comes off the bed first, followed by the blanket in turn across the middle and finally the other end rises.  That way all the birds can orderly lift off, in turn, without colliding with others of their kinds in the air.  

     It's also interesting to note that, at times, the tremendous, noisy hordes of cranes and snows, each species independent of the other, incredibly rising into the air together, blocks out the background, amid a deafening roar of many thousands of voices and wing beats all heard at once.  Those unbelievable lift offs are exciting and inspiring to experience over and over again.

     Snow geese migrate north to the Arctic tundra of Canada and Alaska to raise about four goslings per brood.  And sandhill cranes migrate north to the tundra of Canada, Alaska and Siberia to rear one or two offspring per family.  

     Sandhill cranes and snow geese are thrilling to experience early in the vernal season, from around late February to early April.  I never get tired of their great masses and unending vocalizing.  They represent the wild amid rivers and human-made lakes and fields.  They are exciting, attractive harbingers of spring.   


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