Friendly Reminder

Family of Florida Sandhill Cranes at Barr Hammock near Gainesville

Yesterday I was digging through my t-shirt drawer, weeding out the ones I never wear anymore, and uncovered a sock that was tucked inside the neck of a shirt. I just about shouted for joy! It was my long lost sandhill crane sock that had disappeared sometime after a trip to Florida at Thanksgiving. I was really sad that I had lost it and finding it made me so happy that I was smiling and in a good mood for the rest of the day. It's a little hard to explain, but I have a strange emotional attachment to some of my socks and earrings. They each give me comfort in some way. The sandhill cranes were one of the things I missed most about moving away from Florida (besides family and friends, of course!) and these silly socks were a friendly reminder of the birds I had grown to love during our time living there.

Headline News: Beloved sock, found again!

Gainesville might be famous for the Gators, but it should also be known for the cranes. Sandhill cranes are a huge part of the natural history of Florida and of Gainesville. According to the All About Birds website run by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, "the earliest Sandhill Crane fossil, estimated to be 2.5 million years old, was unearthed at the Macasphalt Shell Pit in Florida." The cranes that come to Florida spend their summers in the Great Lakes region and fly south roughly along the I-75 corridor, arriving in November and December. They are a separate subpopulation from the cranes that migrate and gather in the spring to refuel in famously huge numbers (500,000 plus) at the Platte River in Nebraska. (There is also a threatened sub-species called the Florida Sandhill Crane that lives in Florida year round and raises young there. They are somewhat smaller than the migratory cranes.)

USGS Map of Crane Migration. Note that the scientific name for the Sandhill Crane has recently changed from
Grus canadensis to Antigone canadensis

Sandhill cranes are beautiful and large birds (3-4 feet tall) with long legs, a huge wingspan, long bills and a striking red patch on the forehead. They live in families or pairs, but during migration and winter gather together in large flocks. They prefer marshes and fields where they can feed on seeds, roots, bugs and small critters. The marshes give them protection from predators. Over the years, Paynes Prairie Preserve State Park, just outside of Gainesville, with its wet prairie and wide open spaces, has been a preferred wintering ground. Their breeding ground is far to the north where they spend the summer. For the cranes that migrate to Florida, this means Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin and up further into Canada. When the cold and snowy weather arrives in the fall, like all good snowbirds, they head down south. 

A Beautiful Bird

Red Splash

That big bill is good for probing the soil

The cranes arrive in bunches, usually flying in at night. I read that they can fly 170-450 miles per day, probably depending on a good tail wind and whether they find good resting and feeding spots along the way. More cranes keep arriving all month and the flocks grow bigger. After a few weeks it will be common to see large V's of cranes taking off together around mid-morning from their nighttime resting spots to the marshes and farm fields where they pick through the muck and animal feed.

Searching hard for food. Got to get every last bit!

Coming in for a landing

They stick around in sunny Florida, fattening up until February or March, then start the trip back north to breed. They usually lift off mid-morning, maybe because the thermals are better for flying. They circle overhead, waiting as the groups gather, and then they leave in waves, like squadrons of fighter planes moving out. As with arrival, leaving goes on for a few weeks.

Squadrons heading out

Heading north again

Both our homes in Gainesville were under the flyway and I'm not sure if I can count the number of times I was outside working in the yard or out running errands or walking and heard the unforgettable sound of cranes calling. I would stop whatever I was doing and just stand watching them as they flew overhead, calling and answering in their familiar trumpeting voices. I felt a thrill but also felt sadness as I said goodbye for the season, wishing them well on their journey. Until next fall, friends.

Sometimes endangered Whooping Cranes will join Sandhills, as this one did on the UF campus one year. The Whooping Crane is the tall all white bird in the center

In 2008-9 an exceptionally large number of cranes wintered at Paynes Prairie. People estimated that there were 8000 cranes in Gainesville that year. It was an amazing sight. You should see the mess left when a big flock of cranes has spent the winter. The ground was all turned up and every green sprout and seed and slug had been pull out in their furious search for nutritious food. It looked like it had been rototilled. But the plants grew back again, though the cranes really had changed the landscape that year. When the huge flocks headed back north that spring, the sound as they flew and honked overhead was like a roar from a stadium. I remember being so excited that I grabbed the phone and called my mom and dad in California so they could hear it, too, forgetting that there was a time difference. I'm pretty sure I woke them up, but it was for a good reason. Click here for to see a short video and hear just 2 cranes calling to each other. Multiply that sound by several thousand and you can get the idea.

Flying in

Feeding. See how they have turned the soil?

More landing

Over the last several years, fewer cranes have been wintering in Gainesville. Whether this is due to flooding from hurricanes, loss of habitat along the way, climate change, better food elsewhere, is not clear. It is also not clear if they will return to the area in large numbers again. I don't believe that the population is suffering, but they might just be relocating. This year I heard that more were reported at Okefenokee Swamp in Georgia. Thousands of cranes still make the trip down to points south and to Florida, and the non migratory population will stay as long as they can find good habitat. Overall, the success story of the sandhill crane is heartening. At one time there were fewer than 1000 left. But due to conservation efforts they have thrived. They still face threats from habitat loss, pollution, hunting and climate change, but their numbers are currently strong. My friends in Gainesville say that the cranes are gathering and heading north again and people around Kennesaw, north of Atlanta are seeing them now, too. Unfortunately here in Athens, we are far enough away from their flyways that we don't often get to experience the huge flocks flying overhead. I saw one lone crane flying over Athens last fall but never heard the rattling call that thrills my heart. For that experience I still need to head closer to I-75. Even better, maybe one day I can visit the Platte River in Nebraska in the spring. I can only imagine how wonderful it would be to hear the sound of 500,000 plus cranes calling. Meanwhile, my socks are mementos of the cranes I love. But I worry that they will wear out one day. Maybe I need to find something a bit more permanent to hold onto. Like a tattoo? Hmmm.

A Florida Sandhill Crane family I saw at Circle B Bar Reserve last spring