Nature Where I Live: San Francisco: Sandhill Cranes

Sandhill Cranes at Cosumnes River Preserve

Sunrise is a gift that opens very slowly, and the anticipation itself is part of the gift.

It was still pitch dark when I arrived this morning at Woodbridge Ecological Reserve near Lodi. I got out of the car expecting to hear the familiar croaking of the cranes, but they were silent. The dominant natural noise was delivered instead by countless coyotes. I couldn't see any of them of course, but I'd love to have been able to see the one particular coyote whose howling rose above the din of all the others. Was it calling in its kin to a kill? Showing its strength? Or maybe just feeling jazzed after a great night of being a coyote.

Only one or two cranes vocalized in the darkness, so I didn't know what to expect. Maybe there were only going to be one or two cranes out there. Thankfully, the vocalizing did start to pick up as it got light out, but the nearest cranes were pretty far away. As the morning got brighter, what few cranes there were, soon peeled off in twos and threes and flew away.

It was just barely bright enough to get this shot at f/16. Moments later, all but a couple of the cranes had lifted off and winged south.

Mt. Diablo with Sandhill Crane

Crane Flexing its Wings

In the distance I watched sparse flocks of geese and cranes fly out to their morning feeding areas.

Cranes on the Wing

These were the only two cranes that flew anywhere near me.

A flock of red-winged blackbirds was busy in the same field as a few cranes. A farmer running a disk harrow was off-camera to the right.

Sometimes the cranes are frisky with each other, but this was the only display-tussle I saw all day.

Blackbirds would sometimes circle the cranes before landing.

This was another roadside feeding area with a flooded stubble field, also along Woodbridge Road.

I couldn't see what they were picking up out there, but apparently they pluck out fallen grains from the harvest.

A flock of shorebirds flies past white-fronted geese.

This great egret was lounging atop some grape vines.

I drove the short distance to Staten Island Road, where I found a few cranes in a field more colorful than the plowed ones at Woodbridge Road.

A young sandhill crane forages with its possible family group. There was another adult off-camera.

There were lots of pintails out at Cosumnes Preserve. The secondary parking area was closed for some reason, but the birding was very good up Desmond Road (where Franklin Boulevard ends due to construction).

There were lots of white-fronted geese cackling and humming (yes, humming; I think it was a warning to other geese to keep their distance) in the flooded fields.

This flock of geese raised up for unknown reasons. The sound of their wings as they first lifted off was incredible, and I didn't recognize it right away. There was no vocalization at all, just a rushing sound of wind. The honking came in after they got well into the air.

After circling around, a few of the geese floated down to land next to a small group of cranes.

This was the closest any cranes came to the road all morning.

Such a beautiful bird.

I hadn't used the video on my full-frame camera in so long, I didn't realize I was only capturing sound when I thought I was recording video of the cranes. I still didn't have the exposure quite right when I was recording the geese later on, but at least it's not completely dark.