Light and Shadow
  • Home
  • The Rains Come
  • ecographs
  • Monochrome

Cranes Return

1/27/2015

0 Comments

 
The 2015 Sandhill Crane festival will take place January 17 and 18 at Hiwassee Wildlife Refuge. Early reports of Sandhill Cranes in Meigs County appear elsewhere in this issue of The Chat.

On December 21 of last year I joined the Tennessee Wild Meetup for Sandhill Crane viewing at the refuge. Fog shrouded the landscape and enfolded us. It cut visibility of distant parts of the refuge, but we saw cranes on both the near and far side of a small bay. Sounds enveloped us as they can on foggy days. The rattling call of cranes greeted our ears as flock upon flock flew across our field of vision. Many circled and landed as we watched.  An immature Bald Eagle flew over as well.

We saw one Whooping Crane, cloud white against the gray Sandhill Cranes, and representing a species back from the edge of that abyss called extinction.

The rare Whooping Cranes called to mind a rarer species I once viewed on Cape Cod. I boarded a whale watch boat in hopes of viewing the antics of Humpback Whales. That hope was not realized, but I was lucky to see three Northern Right Whales. A pair of adults swam side by side, as a calf acrobatically rose out of the water and energetically waved its tail flukes and flippers.

With only three hundred Northern Right Whales remaining, the three I saw comprised one percent of the world wide population. They became rare because they were easily hunted and easily retrieved. Whalers called them “the right whale to kill.”

Overhunting may have contributed to the demise of the Whooping Crane as well. Despite their rarity and protected status, Whooping Cranes were shot in Georgia and Texas the previous year.

The Sandhill Cranes we witnessed this day were once considered a rarity as well. Sandhill Cranes were rare enough in Aldo Leopold’s day that he was certain they would soon be extinct. His essay, “Marshland Elegy,” was his farewell to the cranes. Only careful management brought them back to the large and growing population that graces our wetlands and skies today. I hope we can see such success with the Whooping Crane and the Northern Right Whale.

0 Comments



Leave a Reply.

    Picture

    ​Archives                

    July 2022
    June 2022
    March 2022
    January 2022
    December 2021
    October 2021
    September 2021
    August 2021
    July 2021
    June 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    November 2016
    October 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    June 2013
    May 2013
    April 2013
    February 2013
    January 2013
    December 2012
    October 2012

    Categories

    All
    Environment
    Literacy
    Nature

    RSS Feed

Proudly powered by Weebly