Hundreds of sandhill cranes staging at marsh

Fall is a great time to enjoy watching those magnificent sandhill cranes. This is the time when they flock together in large numbers. One of the places you can easily see them is at the Oconto Marsh, one of their staging areas; they stop here and similar places around Wisconsin to rest and replenish energy reserves before starting or continuing their migration south. You can find the Oconto Marsh one mile northeast of Oconto. Park along County Road Y or in the parking lot at the marsh about a half-hour before sunset or sunrise, and you will have a front row seat to their comings and goings.

In the evenings, as dusk settles, they come into the safety of the marsh where they roost for the night. Watching the cranes land in the marsh is like watching a good sky dance; they wheel around, dropping low over the marsh, then with wings wide, down come their long legs, outstretched like landing gears guiding them into a smooth touchdown.

The cranes are not silent; they arrive trumpeting their presence and calling down other cranes passing over, likely some of their Canadian cousins migrating south for the winter. As the evening deepens, the numbers of cranes increases, into the hundreds, creating a cacophony of raucous bugling as the swirling flocks drift down into the marsh. With a crimson sunset backdrop, this is a spectacular sight, a phenomenon of nature, right here in our “backyard.”

According to The Cornell Lab All About Birds (AAB) website, the unique tone of the sandhill crane’s loud, rolling, trumpeting call is a product of its anatomy. The cranes’ long tracheas (windpipes) coil into the sternum which helps develop a lower pitched sound with harmonics that add to its richness. You can’t help but be impressed by their loud, rattling calls.

For a large bird, sandhill cranes are graceful, their flight full of slow steady wingbeats, their landings rather acrobatic. When on the ground, they cut a tall, stately figure. Adults with their long necks and legs stand about 5 feet tall and have a wingspan of up to 7 feet. A distinguishing feature is the red spot on the top of the head and very long black beak.

Sandhill cranes range in color from gray to rusty brown. Interesting, they “paint” their normally gray feathers in the summer with mud in order to blend in more with their surroundings; this camouflage helps protect them and their young.

We are lucky here in Wisconsin to be able to see sandhill cranes from their arrival in March through to their departure south in early November. In the spring, look for them in wetlands where they breed, feed and raise their young, and in nearby fields. Cranes spend their time in these habitats feeding on tubers, seeds, insects, frogs, clams, crabs, fish and small rodents such as mice.

If you are fortunate, you may get to see the sandhills’ graceful courtship dances. These tall birds are impressive dancers, stretching their wings wide, pumping their heads and leaping into the air. Their enthusiasm is captivating; we find it enchanting that such a large bird is so expressive.

These birds have survived the eons; according to AAB, the earliest sandhill crane fossil, found in Florida, is about 2.5 million years old. Aldo Leopold in his “Sand County Almanac” recognized this. In his essay entitled “Marshland Elegy” he writes, “When we hear his (sandhill crane) call we hear no mere bird. He is the symbol of our untamable past, of that incredible sweep of millennia which underlies and conditions the daily affairs of birds and men.”

Leopold, an early American ecologist, forester, environmentalist and professor at UW-Madison, mourned the potential loss of the sandhill cranes, writing, “Some day … the last crane will trumpet his farewell and spiral skyward from the great marsh. …. and then a silence never to be broken, unless perchance in some far pasture of the Milky Way.”

Leopold knew that sandhills experienced a significant population decline in the 1800s and early 1900s due to habitat loss, hunting, and egg and feather collecting and that their numbers were low even during his lifetime (1887-1948).

Fortunately, passing of the Federal Migratory Bird Treaty Act in 1918 along with habitat protection, especially protection of wetlands where the birds roost and feed, has helped recover a viable population of sandhill cranes that now number in the tens of thousands. We must keep these great birds with us. They exude history, geological time, and add beauty, grace and a sense of wonder and delight to our world.

Visit the Oconto Marsh this fall, especially from mid-October to early November, to view for yourself the astounding sight of seeing hundreds of sandhill cranes staging for their migration south. You will be amazed and delighted.

Cathy Carnes is a retired biologist in Oconto who worked with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Green Bay Field Office and, prior to that, with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Regulatory Branch in Buffalo, New York. As endangered species coordinator for the USFWS, she helped conserve and recover federally listed threatened and endangered species in Wisconsin.