An argumentative chap - sandhill cranes

[pavel]

This couple visited off and on during the latter part of summer.




To my untrained eye, they appear to be sandhill cranes. This particular day, the male (I assume) was having an arguement with a little dog. The little dog would bark, the crane would squawk back, the dog would bark again .... Based on sheer volume, I would definitely have to say the crane won. Though he was well over 20 yards away, a friend with whom I was speaking on the telephone could hear the crane loud and clear. A number of weeks later, I passed within 10ft of what I believe was this same pair in a field next to my apt building. They didn't appear to be the least concerned. (Of course I did not have my camera with me. )

[Brutal_Dreamer]

How funny. Sometimes squires will 'bark' back at my dogs like they are having an argument. Nice photo!

cheers,
BD

[catttan]

Nice shot!

[zainal abidin]

I love this beautiful cranes only observed in National Geographic thanks for sharing.

[stateless]

funny how as humans with our complicated and highly developed languages can be surpassed by squawks and barks, maybe it's not what you say but how you say it, thanks for sharing

[raybark]

Back when I was charged with analyzing and improving management systems within a chemical company, I used to visit a manufacturing plant at the bottom of the Texas panhandle, about 80 miles from New Mexico. They sucked brine out of underground lakes, and via heating and cooling, extracted sodium sulfate (80% of your powdered detergent is sodium sulfate). One of the byproducts is hot, pure, laboratory-grade water.

When you make salt for a living, you get rust. As you don't want rust in your detergent, they dump the contaminated salt out on the desert, and trickle the pure, hot water on it inside of a lagoon made from salt dams, letting the earth, re-purify it.

I just so happens that the plant site is in the Alaska-Gulf of Mexico flyway, and brine shrimp have hatched from eggs on the legs of birds landing in those artificial salt water lagoons.

Last time I visited in the fall, there were about 20,000-30,000 sandhill cranes in the lagoons and on the surrounding flats. It was an absolutely amazing thing to see.

(Not to mention, when was the last time a chemical factory became a wildlife sanctuary???)

[pavel]

That's neat, Ray. Hadn't heard about that before.

[tucker85]

I love sandhill cranes. The red color on top of the head really stands out on a sunny day. I see them often in the Ft. Pierce area. They don't seem to fear people at all. A couple of years ago I was picking up some plants at a nursery in Ft. Pierce and I left my car door open while I was getting the plants. When I came back, a pair of sandhill cranes was standing by the open car door and one had his neck in the car seeing if it could find something. I had to shoo them off because they didn't seem to want to let me in the car.

[cdayinflorida]

We have many sandhills in my neighborhood. They greet you with a raucous of bill clapping in my backyard. I have several families that visit. Some came with two chicks, some with one. They are now almost the size of their parents. Many years ago I had a pair of African crowned cranes that I bought as chicks from a friend. As they grew they would dance around me doing this jump and down thing while flapping their wings. Just an awesome experience.