Sandhill Cranes

Have you ever seen a sandhill crane? I hadn't until Sunday morning. In fact, I didn't even know that I should be looking for them until I read Dennis Anderson's column in the Sunday StarTribune newspaper. Apparently, this is the beginning of sandhill crane hunting season. (If you had asked me, I would have thought that they were on the endangered species list and exempt from hunting, but no one asked me, so I guess they're fair game.)

So there I was, rolling  down Decker Avenue on my bike just south of HWY 19 and some movement on the right side of the road caught my eye. Standing in the middle of a hay field were four sandhill cranes. At first I thought they were Canada geese, but then I noticed two telltale signs. First, none of the birds had any black markings (ah, ever seen any geese without black masks?). Second, these birds had legs, I mean, they were off the ground like houses in a flood zone. No geese I've ever seen had legs like these.

When I got home, I dug out my Sibley's and looked up sandhill cranes. The hoods in the illustrations were seriously red and the ones I saw in the flesh were more brown or rust, but the body type and THE LEGS were unmistakeable. What a fortuitous moment! I love those kind of random events. They only last for a few moments and they're totally unpredictable, but they're priceless. You just have to be ready to accept them.

Bugs and Other Flying Things

Yesterday was a fat tire day, too much wind for an enjoyable road ride. It was fantastic changing back and forth  between gravel and grass. But regardless of what was under the rubber, the real scenery was the flying objects that accompanied me on both sides of the trail.

 As I've been aware for the past several days, August is the month not only for cicadas, our musical drones, but for dragonflies, our prairie biplane flying drones. There are squadrons of them everywhere, buzzing the corn, skimming over the prairie grass, in the trees and bushes in our yard, and all of them totally silent. I'm not an expert, in fact, I can't name any of the varieties, but I love to watch them bob up and down on the air currents and flash their iridescence in the sunlight. Yesterday's specimens all had green bodies.

In a motorized vehicle, you can't really appreciate birds or flying insects because even if you see them, you're probably complicit in ending their lives or at best, giving them a hell of a scare.  But on a bike, you actually move at about their speed, so at times, it seems as though you're actually part of a formation with them. I swear that a couple of monarchs decided to accompany me for a few yards (not sure they can make decisions, but whatever).