Our neighbor, Ron Kmieciak, called about 3:30 p.m. to tell us that four Sandhill Cranes -- three adults and one pint-sized -- had stopped in his pond. We high-tailed it over to his house south of Franktown, and watched the four -- the small one about half the size of the other three and darker (rustier maybe) and maybe even a bit fuzzy on the head.
They walked through Ron's field apparently searching for food; they didn't seem to find much as they moved fairly rapidly. They covered a couple of hundred yards in the 10-15 minutes that we watched. What happened that they still have such an obvious youngster with them? Late nest? They probably couldn't wait much longer to head south from their breeding grounds; perhaps they stopped in mid-afternoon because the young one couldn't fly as well as the rest. We haven't heard of any Sandhill migrants for about 10 days until today. And why three adults? Or could one be an earlier youngster? Or from 2008 instead of this year? Urling & Hugh Kingery --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ Colorado Field Ornithologists: http://www.cfo-link.org/ Colorado County Birding: http://www.coloradocountybirding.com/ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Colorado Birds" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.as/group/cobirds?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
