# Cranes



## tangleknot (Oct 8, 2001)

I was driving home today and was North of Rochester on the when I looked out into a combined field and saw what I think were two cranes. At first, I thought they were Herons but they stood much taller and straighter.

They must have been eating beans. I think I saw my first sandhill cranes. How cool!


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## Airoh (Jan 19, 2000)

Congrats on your sighting.

I've been seeing them off M24 south of Lake Orion the last few years. They seem to have made a pretty big comeback in Michigan over the last 20 years. I am also hearing them a lot flying over our house. They are really noisy.


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## Sarge (Apr 25, 2000)

Last Sunday Morning we had 5 'BIG BIRDS" in the back. 

They stood about 6 to 7 feet tall with huge bodies. My wife called them Egrets, but I'm not sure she knew. She might have been guessing. In any case these were very big birds. She went out with the digital cam which has no zoom and tried to get close enough for a pic and eventually they flew off with no pic. 

Amazingly large bodied birds.

PS. that 6 - 7 feet is a pure guess they were a good 80 yards away and appeard taller than me @ 5' 8".


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## outdooralex (Jan 7, 2002)

Thats pretty funny. Yesterday while at lunch I was reading an old magazine a friend of mine brought in. It was a 1961 issue of Sports Afield Magazine, and in this particular issue this is an article on how to HUNT sandhill cranes. It shows photos of a guy setting his crane decoys in a corn field. Then in another picture it shows him holding a crane he just shot like we would hold a turkey nowadays. Fourty two years later we are talking about just seeing them. I love reading these old mags!!


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## Sawcat (Apr 5, 2003)

Sandhills are pretty easy to recognize they are indeed large and they have a bright red area on their heads. I saw a show recently in Texas and they were hunting them, you talk about hitting the ground hard! I used to see them often on the farm, they liked to land in the corn fields after harvest and eat the spillage. They used to nest in one of the ponds on the farm and I got to see the little ones sometimes, very cool birds.


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## gratioteer (Oct 10, 2002)

in the U.P. quite a bit. Sometime mixing in with the herons in the marshes but usually off in the fields. Big birds! Very noisy.

They are also "abundant" in WI

Gratioteer


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## kroppe (May 7, 2000)

Many sandhills in the Pinckney Rec area. Specifically, North Lake, Four Mile Lake and Pickerel Lakes are all nesting areas. They make a really bizarre whooping-type call. 



















Great blue herons are also pretty common in Washtenaw County. We have one that flies over our house regularly, it must live in a swampy bottom of a local woodlot. 










Great egrets hang around a retention basin in Ann Arbor, you can see it from I-94 between US-23 and State Street on the north side of the freeway.


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## WALLEYE MIKE (Jan 7, 2001)

Hey Sarge, 6-7 ft. tall????? What you been smoken' Only birds that large are ostriches or emu's.

Great blue herons and the great white herons will approach 48"
Sand hill cranes too.


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## Luv2hunteup (Mar 22, 2003)

If you ever want to see sandhill cranes and not leave the state come to the EUP. They are everywhere.

Find someone who has mature barley and you will see cranes by the 100s. They love oats just prior to when they mature plus they sure pick through my newly planted oat plots if the seed is near the surface.

They sure make some noise. Too bad we can hunt them like the Mississippi flyway gets to. I would like to take a mature male to add to my silent zoo. 

Even though I see them all the time out by camp I still like to slow down and check them out when there by the sides of the road.

Hey Sarge, maybe 4 foot tall. Unless you were down by Fermi II. LOL


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## Rich12271 (Apr 13, 2002)

I was walking my property in Atlas Township, near Goodrich, yesterday morning and was really surprised when I heard one of these "whooping". Had never seen one before and it really caught me off guard. Saw him take off and head to a nearby cornfield. Definitely a cool site.


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## multibeard (Mar 3, 2002)

During the early goose season we have more cranes than geese. It takes a while to be able to distinguish the differance between them and geese at a distance so you don't waster yopur breath trying to call them in. It's not unusual to have 100+ in a field squacking so loud you can't here the geese.

They do alot of damage to the corn fields on germination in the spring. The farmer in the UP where I used to hunt complained tio the FWS. They came out and fired exploding shells over them. The FWS guy was real proud when they flew off. The only problem was that they just went to the next field over to pull corn. 

We could stand a season around here like they have in the west. Maybe a drawing of some sort. From what I have heard they are good eating.


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## tangleknot (Oct 8, 2001)

Wow, sounds like they are much more common then I would have ever imagined (must be my location that is not as populated). Cool stories and sightings!


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## enfield (Apr 13, 2003)

Sandhills are also thick in the Grass Lake area. I watched one thru binoculars one day -- it was standing motionless out in a field and it looked like it was hunting. It was -- it's head darted down and it came back up with a fat chipmunk!


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## johnhunter (Jun 17, 2000)

Loads of 'em in the northern half of Hillsdale County. They must be "staging" for the trip south. Saw hundreds of them, that's right, hundreds, in harvested wheat and bean fields around mid-day on Wednesday. 

The farmers are starting to grumble.

There's been a very large population of Sandhill Cranes for decades in NE Jackson County.

I've noticed a few sticking around near my farm throughout the winter in recent years. 

Could we have a season in our future? Today, Mourning Doves, tomorrow, cranes!


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## Lunker (Aug 27, 2001)

Well I finnally saw them! I saw my first 2 sandhills in a cut soybean field in Hillsdale 2 days ago. They were a powder blue color and both pecking at beans in the field. And also about a foot taller than a blue heron ! I couldnt beleive I didnt have a camera. This was on the way to Vineyard off of 12. Very cool.


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## Randy Kidd (Apr 21, 2001)

kroppe, 
I hunt out in that area often, Sounds like hundreds of those things in the area...Sometimes on a still morning you can hardly here yourself think with all of the Cranes sounding off, The Turkeys gobbeling, There is even a damn Mule close to there who brays his fool head off, Mix in the assorted Cows that need milking and the dogs barking...Man ain't it great!!!


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## archie holst (Aug 18, 2003)

There are alot here in Montcalm Co. also.


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## otown (Jul 11, 2003)

Yes, to my surprise, they do have hunting seasons on them in the Midwest, I think the Dakotas.
Informationally, they are supposed to have the loudest call of any bird and I saw a clip of a 500 bird flock that just about blew out the sound system. 

o town


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