The fall migration of Sandhill cranes is a certain sign of winter to come, even as we have been dealing with unprecedented warm weather during the past few weeks. But there are days when the mornings are cool, and the leaves are either at or past their peak in many regions of the high country.
One of the books on my overflowing shelves is Following the Sandhill Cranes in Colorado: Enticed into Birding, which is based on the journals of Evelyn Horn.
Horn shares her personal observation of Sandhill Cranes and a variety of other migratory birds including Great Blue Herons, American White Pelicans, and a several species of ducks. She writes of Swallows, Red-wing Blackbirds, Magpies and Steller’s Jays.
The note style of writing makes you feel as if you’ve opened a private journal and peered into the pages of a woman’s life as she follows the birds.
Most of Horn’s observations take place at Hart’s Basin, or Fruitgrower’s Reservoir, a site she notes is an “Important Birding Area” even though it has not been designated as a bird sanctuary or wildlife refuge.
The site in western Colorado, northeast of Delta, is on the migration route for Sandhill Cranes and other birds. Some days Evelyn Horn has observed thousands of cranes; other days there are only a few and instead the shoreline is populated by Killdeer or Mallards.
Each short chapter is an observation of a specific type of bird and Horn provides concise descriptions that are generally devoid of scientific and technical terms, making this fun and easy reading.
Cranes are her primary focus and the book includes extensive information about the migratory patterns of the Sandhill Cranes, and their rarer cousins, Whooping Cranes.
Horn discusses their winter habitat at Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge near Albuquerque, New Mexico, and their migration through the San Luis Valley of Colorado and into the area of Hart’s Basin, before continuing to their nesting sites father north.
She writes of the crane migration, “When they land at Hart’s Basin, they come from high above after a day’s flight that crosses mountain passes at about 10,000 feet. During their stay here, we look down at them from our hilltop as they forage in the pasture and along the reservoir’s shores. And when they take off in the morning, they must gain altitude to cross more mountains, again at about 10,000 feet. So, the pattern of flight here is vertical in contrast to the horizontal flight pattern in other areas.”
In following the cranes, Horn takes you across Cochetopa Pass, to Saguache, Monte Vista, San Luis Valley, and to Bosque del Apache where she has watched the cranes both on their morning or spring “fly-out’ and their evening or fall “fly-in.”
A morning at the refuge where “birds erupt from the adjacent ponds… hundreds… thousands all at once” contrasts with the evening return. She wrote: “The evening darkens and still they come. Against the turquoise blue of the desert sky, the luminous crescent moon drifts among wavering lines of Cranes and Snow Geese….Still they come…more quietly…more purposefully.”
You may not be a birdwatcher before you read this book, but it certainly will entice you to become one, especially this time of year when the cranes are heading south.
Candy Moulton can be reached at Candy.L.Moulton@gmail.com
