TheBanyanTree: A Privilege Granted from Above

[B Drummond]

I had to take the Woofle Hound outside today for a potty break.  I took 
him down the deck stairs in the back and hooked him on the lease for a 
little sunshine, poop, and territory marking session. (P.S.  he did all 
the pooping and territory marking, I just watched.)  

I ascended the stairs, got back to the deck, and paused for a minute 
there.  It was then I noticed a odd noise that I guessed was avian in 
nature.  And then there it was again.  And again.

Canada geese I thought, at first.  I started scanning the skies for 
geese flying overhead since I see them working their way from ponds and 
golf courses in our area at this time of year.  They are usually easy 
to spot since they typically fly low and are big birds. But my ear 
trained to the sound of birds almost straight overhead, and I looked up 
to see birds flying higher than I have ever seen birds flying before. 

I got a good glimpse of three flocks of birds,  large birds, even at 
the altitude there were at.  Two of the flocks were in a broken pattern 
and the calls seemed to me to be signals to the errant to stay with the 
flock.  These birds were boogying too, not dragging their feet in the 
least.  They were beautiful against a pale blue sky and thin cirrus 
clouds.  It was about 2 o'clock in the afternoon.  I was stunned.  They 
look like they're migrating north, I thought.  Birds don't migrate 
north around here in February, was my next thought.

I watched them for a minute and got so excited about it that I went 
inside, told my wife to drop what she was doing, and come take a look 
at them.  She wasn't as excited as I was about the idea and took longer 
than I wanted her to but she did go outside.  On the way out I grabbed 
my ancient pair of binoculars for a better view of the beautiful birds.

"Do you see them?" I said pointing.

"Where?" she said.

Then I remembered that she doesn't see distant objects as well as I 
do.  Shoot!  She's gonna' miss 'em, I thought.

"Right there," I pointed again as the last of the three flocks were 
about to disappear over the roof line of the house.

"Oh, yeah," she said squinting, " I think I see them now."  And then 
they were gone over the roof line and out of sight.  In the house she 
went.

I grabbed the binoculars and tried in vain to find them.  The 
binocular's lenses were dusty and the focus was set for short range.  I 
dusted off the lenses and fiddled with the focus but couldn't find them 
at all with the binoculars.

I went back inside and discussed the birds with my wife for a moment.  
"Could you see them well enough to make out what kind of bird they 
were?" I asked.

"Nope"

"I think they were cranes, judging from their wing pattern," I said.  
I'm no birder, but that wing pattern was stork or crane-like to me," I 
told her.

She was unfazed and went back to her work.

I headed for the front door in the meantime and stuck my head out to 
get a glimpse of the sky where I saw them last.  I looked as hard as I 
could but couldn't make out any birds anywhere in the sky.  There 
wasn't much of the sky visible anyway before the tree line made things 
very difficult to see on that side.  It seemed as though they had 
vanished in seconds,  much quicker than I had figured they would.

Birds migrating north in FEBRUARY, in OUR part of the world? I thought.  
For a minute I wasn't so sure that I even saw them at all. I was even 
less sure that my wife really saw them.  Puzzled, I went back in.

"Did you see them, really? I asked.

"Yes, I saw them," she said. "Really."

"I went to the front of the house as quickly as I could and I couldn't 
see them again, hard as I tried.  I can't explain it.  How could they 
be gone that quickly?" I asked.

She looked at me for a moment and then went back to work again.

The whole matter bothered me for a good while.   Birds migrating north 
in February?  I don't know if that's something normal or not, I 
thought.

Later that day I headed to the computer and fired it up, opened a web 
browser, went to a search engine, and typed in "cranes + migration + 
February"

The screen shimmied for a moment and then,

Bingo!

I found several sites on sandhill cranes and migrations that occur in 
February when the birds leave south Georgia and Florida and head back 
north.  Man, they must be hearty birds!  I thought. It's still cold as 
heck in 
the places where these birds go back to.

Here's an excerpt and some URLs:

"About 30,000 greater sandhill cranes breed in Wisconsin, Michigan, 
Ontario, and neighboring states. In late summer and 
early fall, these cranes lose their territorial urges and begin to 
congregate in flocks on traditional "staging" areas. From 
here they fly to Jasper-Pulaski State Wildlife Area in north-central 
Indiana where they remain for several weeks feeding 
on waste corn in nearby fields. They then continue migration to spend 
the winter in Florida and southern Georgia. They 
are one of the first migratory birds back to Wisconsin, often arriving 
in late February or early March."

http://www.savingcranes.org/species/sandhill.asp


"Spring Arrival:

The annual return of Sandhill Cranes is a sure sign of spring. The urge 
to migrate moves them from their warm winter quarters to 
the cold, snowy landscape of Michigan. Arriving in mid February in 
southern Michigan and nearly a month later to northern 
Michigan, they are one of the earliest migratory birds to return. 
Unlike Sandhills in many other areas, Michigan Sandhills seldom 
gather in large flocks during spring migration, but rather disperse to 
their nesting territories."

http://www.michiganaudubon.org/bakersanctuary/crane.htm

"Migrating with northbound Sandhill Cranes over Brooks County, Georgia, 
in mid-February was a single Whooping Crane, presumably a bird 
involved in an experimental effort to use an ultralight airplane to 
train 
captive-reared Whoopers to migrate between Wisconsin and Florida."

http://www.americanbirding.org/publications/wgrbafeb.htm

I felt relieved at the discovery. Yes,  I was probably right about them 
looking like cranes. Yes, there were birds that migrated north that 
early.   They have done it for probably 6 million years (one URL says 
there are 6 million year old fossils of the sandhill crane making it 
the oldest still living species of bird. (I don't know if that means in 
North America, just the state that that URL applied to or the whole 
world)

They have done this for my entire life and I never had any idea they 
were flying overhead because I was not out when they flew over, or 
clouds obscured them, or I was distracted with other things in life. 
But this time I was in the right place at the right time purely by 
happenstance and potty needs of a near worthless hound.

Maybe there was even a whooper in the mix with the sandhills.  Maybe 
that's why they were calling to some that were drifting out of 
formation.  Maybe the whooper was lonely for his kind, or confused, or 
tired. 

If I live to be 120 I will never forget their beautiful shapes 
silhouetted so high up against the sky and their calls so unique.  
I will always feel most lucky that, in the expanse of the big old sky 
over the small section of the state of Georgia that I live in, at just 
the right time, on this day they chose to fly over my house, had to 
call to stragglers in the flock, and make me look up in jaw-dropping 
awe at their matchless grace and effortless beauty in flight, following 
a 6 million year old call encoded deep in the fabric of their genes.  

It is something that still leaves me breathless.  It is to me a 
privilege granted from above,  something that I can not fathom.



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