Birds and Nature

I first found these cranes on March 10 (first day birding for several days as I had been out of town) and I watched them take off yesterday and gaining a lot of altitude to apparently provide the winds at higher altitude to continue their migration. As the cranes flew in circles, they beat their wings often then started to glide as they got higher. SeEtta

These short video clips show the family of 4 Sandhill Cranes in the Canon City, CO area that made a stop-over from their migration north to feed. They would come into this fallow agricultural field where manure had been spread the week before. In the video clip the cranes can be seen turning the large pieces of manure and tossing clumps aside to get at insects and/or grain. Clearly shown is one of the cranes keeping a watch while the others eat. (note-the sound sucks because I am parked on the side of a busy road with a lot of traffic plus big wind gusts blowing a metal sign but I did turn the sound lower).  SeEtta