Cranes, Cranes, and Even More Cranes!

I’m Simon Tolzmann, and I’m a part of the Illinois Young Birders club. I’ve been in the ILYB for just over 2 years now, and I’ve made truly amazing friends.

On Saturday, November 24, 2018, My dad, brother and I woke up at 5:30 a.m. and made the hour drive to Beverly Hills near Michigan City in LaPorte County, Indiana. Steve Bayer, the new ILYB leader, had scoped the locations out the day before, was already at Beverly Hills. By the time a few more young birders and their families showed up, we had an odd Herring Gull, and an American Crow. After about half an hour the small group drove to Miller Beach, saw gulls and a few Horned Grebes, flyby Red-breasted Mergansers and Common Goldeneye. We kind of expected this as the winds are blowing north, and that was not favorable.

The group of 18 roll out to Jasper-Pulaski FWA at about 11:00 a.m. At about noon the group gets to the Sandhill Crane viewing area, with seeing only one Sandhill Crane in the field. Soon we see a Bald and two Golden Eagles and soon following, a Harlan’s Red-tailed Hawk! A few more cranes trickle in and otherwise, it is really slow. We go to Medaryville for lunch and head back to the Sandhill Crane Viewing Area.

There are a few more cranes when we get back, and a few Tufted Titmice bounced around. Now the cranes are starting to really come in, but there are still only about 800. We stand around the platform for a few hours, some birders have to leave, but the ones that stay are truly in for a big treat. At about 3:30 p.m. many thousands of cranes start to pour in from literally all directions. By dark, tens of thousands of Sandhill Cranes had touched down in the fields. The cacophony of tens of thousands of Sandhill Cranes drowned out the sounds of camera shutters! For a few hours, Sandhill Crane was the only species of bird I saw. This is certainly the largest concentration of birds I’ve seen in North America! The green and brown fields were gray, and looked like they had an eerie haze blanketing them, but it was really cranes. The sky until sundown was covered with cranes.

Good birding,
Simon Tolzmann