Sandhill Cranes!

My Friend Tammy has decided that she really likes big birds, so wanted to get some pictures of the Sandhill Cranes as they come through on their way north. She had heard about the Dale Saunders Crane Sanctuary up in Trapper Creek that in the past has had hundreds of the birds in their fields. She asked if I would take a drive with her to go check it out, and I agreed.

On the actual day we planned our little adventure, she called me and said “I was just now plotting our course and realized that this is a two-hour drive! Did you still want to go?” Mind you, that’s 2-hours one way, so it’s a 4-hour trip all together, and we weren’t even sure there would be any birds!

But, I had nothing else to do that day, so we climbed in to her car and off we went. We stopped at the Subway there at the junction of the Parks & the Talkeetna Spur to grab a sandwich we could eat at the sanctuary, and still had 14 more miles to go. We did eventually find the place only to discover it was still buried in snow up to our waists. However, just as we were turning around to leave, she noticed something in the sky and asked, “Wait, is that… is that a crane?”

It was! It was a crane. As in, one (1) bird. We drove 2 hours - over 114 miles – to see one bird.

Oh well; we had a good drive and got caught up on each other’s news.

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So today, I’m driving around in Palmer and happened to see 10 Sandhill cranes fly overhead. I quickly texted her and then headed off to the cow fields to see if I could find any more.

Oh boy, did I find more! There was maybe 50 or 60 of them – and even a few swans, too!