|
Sandhill Crane
(Grus canadensis)
In honor of Valentine’s
Day, Dove Key Ranch Wildlife Rehabilitation’s animal of the month
is a member of the crane family. Honored as symbols of marital fidelity
and conjugal bliss throughout Southeast Asia, the native cultures
of India, and Japan (where it is customary to adorn wedding gifts
with folded origami cranes in place of ribbons and bows), gruids have
a celebrated reputation for monogamy in folklore as well as in scientific
investigations. |
Sandhill Cranes
Photo courtesy Dove Key Ranch Wildlife Rehabilitation |
The sandhill
cranes pictured above are members of a wintering flock approximating
50 individuals that ply the neighboring cattle field for seeds, berries,
and small creatures throughout the coldest days of our Texas winters.
Love is in
the air:
Necks
outstretched and lanky legs trailing behind, flocks of Lesser, Greater,
and Canadian sandhill cranes populate high-flying v’s and ride the
thermals in whirlwinds, heralding the Texas autumn with their distinctive
trumpeting calls. Projected from one of the longest windpipes in the
avian world, these bugles can be heard for up to one mile away. Every
November, nearly 500,000 sandhill cranes drop like leggy parachutes
into the rice fields, open wetlands, pastures, and native prairies
that comprise their winter abodes throughout Texas,
Arizona, New Mexico, and Mexico.
Their 4 ft high figures are dressed in bustles of gray feathers, some
dyed a rusty hue from the iron rich mud of more northerly marshes.
Adults are crowned with a red-skinned cap that can be glimpsed darting
in and out of vegetative clumps, from which sandhills glean their
mainstays of berries, grains, insects, green shoots, and small vertebrate
life.
Migration is a family affair for these stately birds. One to two chicks
mature under the protective guidance of both parents for nine to ten
months, wheeling with mom and dad from nesting grounds dotting the
tundra, wetlands, and grasslands of the northern U.S., Canada, Alaska,
and Siberia to warmer larders in the southwest. Contributing to the
stability of the family unit is a usually monogamous partnership between
the mated adults, one that may endure a lifetime of up to twenty-five
years. Couples cement their reproductive unity each spring with elaborate
courtship dances. Reminiscent of cajoling ballerinas, the bonding
pair betray a powerful elegance as they alight: leaping, strutting,
bill-raising, and gracefully fluttering their majestic wings, the
soundtrack provided by their own rolling calls. Touted as avian bastions
of marital fidelity, cranes slip out of these shrouds of anthropomorphism
when loyalty would exact a high evolutionary cost: illness or death
of a mate or loss of a year’s brood often initiates re-coupling. |
 |
"Luckily
for present-day Texans, the migratory flock of sandhills stock the
largest concentration of cranes on the planet!"
Photo courtesy Dove Key Ranch Wildlife Rehabilitation |
As the warmer
winds of March blow across Texas, the cranes
turn their sights and wings to the north, bonds between parents and
the former summer’s young dissolve, and the winter haunts of these
trumpeting avians fall eerily quiet. This a comparatively recent silence,
however. Majestic sandhill cranes once stalked their way through the
wetlands of coastal
Texas year round, coo-ing to newly hatched offspring nestled in
mounds of marsh vegetation. Non-migratory populations of these prolific
gruids stretched across the southeastern U.S. and Cuba, steadily fragmenting
and disappearing under the burden of over hunting and habitat destruction.
The last rattle of a nonmigratory sandhill crane in Texas disappeared
into the coastal fog over a century ago, echoed only by the contemporary
calls of nonmigratory brethren clinging to existence in restricted
ranges in Mississippi, Georgia, Florida, and Cuba.
Luckily for present-day Texans, the migratory flock of sandhills stock
the largest concentration of cranes on the planet! As long as we take
pride in and protect these connubial avians and their cold weather-retreats,
we will be graced with the lilting proclamations of cranes long into
future and, perhaps, even be inspired with the spirit of romance that
similar gruid concerts have stirred in people the world over.
© Bonnie Wroblewski
http://www.dovekeywildlife.org
February 22, 2011
More Dove Key Ranch Wildlife Rehabilitation
- "Animal of the Month" Series |
|
|
HOME
