Wednesday, August 31, 2011
Dance of the Sandhills
|
All photos by Jonathan Schechter
Sandhill Cranes, August 31, 2011
Brandon Township, Michigan
I often hear their mystical primordial sounding musical call at dawn.
But seldom do I see them.
Today I had both treats of the wilder side of nature.
A pair of sandhill cranes with their full grown flight-tested young danced about in my neighbor's
fallow field just before 6 pm. (The pictures were all from my car parked roadside.) But the dance
of walk and stalk and leap I witnessed was not a dance of pleasure.
It was a dance of survival for the cranes and a death dance for crunchy grasshoppers
and perhaps some juicy meadow voles as well.
Each field dance ended with a grab or stab.
A diet rich in protein is essential for the great task that looms ahead: Migration!
And these birds know that their time to fly will be soon.
|
3 Comments:
Baby Pterodactyls!!!!
And that they might as well be---baby pterodactyls!
Very nice! I enjoy seeing these birds!
Post a Comment
Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]
<< Home