Four sandhill cranes on final approach
Cranes and geese on layoversCopyright 2007 Lydia Hinshaw
FAIRBANKS, AK -- Prince Charming and I felt the need to commune with the gods of Safeway and Big Daddy Thursday, so we drove here for shopping and lunch at the northernmost southern barbecue restaurant.
We made our usual stop at Creamer's Field Migratory Waterfowl Refuge, where a weekend festival will honor sandhill cranes. We were sorry to be a day early and unable to stay.
The cranes had obviously heard about the festival. We watched for about half an hour as group after group appeared in the northern sky, circled, picked a spot and landed in this former dairy-farm pasture that's now one of Mother Nature's busiest airports.
Hundreds of honking Canada geese were arriving too, joining hundreds of their cousins already on the ground, where they feuded and squabbled. Every now and then, 30 or 40 geese would lift off and settle again in another part of the field.
In a few days, the geese and cranes will take off again, southbound in their race against winter.
In three weeks we'll be back in Fairbanks, checking out Creamer's Field one more time before we turn south ourselves.
We made our usual stop at Creamer's Field Migratory Waterfowl Refuge, where a weekend festival will honor sandhill cranes. We were sorry to be a day early and unable to stay.
The cranes had obviously heard about the festival. We watched for about half an hour as group after group appeared in the northern sky, circled, picked a spot and landed in this former dairy-farm pasture that's now one of Mother Nature's busiest airports.
Hundreds of honking Canada geese were arriving too, joining hundreds of their cousins already on the ground, where they feuded and squabbled. Every now and then, 30 or 40 geese would lift off and settle again in another part of the field.
In a few days, the geese and cranes will take off again, southbound in their race against winter.
In three weeks we'll be back in Fairbanks, checking out Creamer's Field one more time before we turn south ourselves.
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