Avian Explorer » Crane http://www.avianexplorer.com birding, photography and living with pet birds Sat, 04 Feb 2012 17:42:45 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.1.3 The Great Salt Lake Birding Festival http://www.avianexplorer.com/2010/05/the-great-salt-lake-birding-festival/ http://www.avianexplorer.com/2010/05/the-great-salt-lake-birding-festival/#comments Sun, 23 May 2010 00:17:34 +0000 Elizabeth http://www.avianexplorer.com/?p=989 Last weekend Jon and I attended the Great Salt Lake Birding Festival.  We’re still recovering.  There were so many activities and so many birds.  I even got to meet Birdchick, who is very nice and had excellent stories.  Jon and I attended a tour of the Great Salt Lake Shorelands Preserve, a behind the scenes tour of of the Farmington Bay   Waterfowl Management Area and a 6am to 6pm tour of Deseret Ranch.  For the next month you’ll be reading about these three places because I have a lot of pictures and stories.  We’ll start with the Shorelands Preserve in Layton, UT.

The Shorelands Preserve is a giant marsh where they put planks down so that people can walk into the marsh and observe birds without being covered in muck.  Do you see the structure in the middle of the picture?  The thing that looks like a pirate ship?  It’s a viewing tower.  You can see everything from up there.

There were several birds in flight, such as Sandhill Cranes.

and White Pelicans

White Pelicans are gorgeous!  I can’t wait to show you a close-up picture.  I took some at Farmington Bay, but it was through a bus so the pictures were too blurry.  The most interesting picture was of a crow stealing an egg from the Red-Winged Blackbirds.

Isn’t that sad?  A lot of people don’t like Red-Winged Blackbirds because they displace cute and delicate birds, but I’m still sad for the parents.  The blackbirds didn’t chase the crow for very far, presumably because there were still eggs in the nest.  Ah well, if it has to happen, at least I got the picture.

]]> http://www.avianexplorer.com/2010/05/the-great-salt-lake-birding-festival/feed/ 2 Sandhill Cranes http://www.avianexplorer.com/2009/08/sandhill-cranes/ http://www.avianexplorer.com/2009/08/sandhill-cranes/#comments Sun, 16 Aug 2009 00:24:00 +0000 Elizabeth http://www.avianexplorer.com/2009/08/sandhill-cranes/ In Utah, we took one day to explore a series of rivers southwest of Salt Lake City. Jordanelle State Park is located near the Jordanelle dam. It’s a very popular spot for fishing.
As we were leaving the area, we spotted some movement in the grasses and stopped the car. I saw my first sandhill crane!

Sandhill cranes are so beautiful and delicate. They move like ballet dancers; very carefully and quietly. They’re quite skittish.

The sandhill crane has the oldest fossil records of any existing bird species. Scientists have found a fossils of a sandhill crane that dates back 2.5 million years, which is 1.5 times older than the second oldest fossil of any existing bird species.
And then there were two!
Sandhill cranes mate for life. Their mating ritual involves a series of leaps and deep bows.
They’re supposed to migrate through the Bay area starting in September. I’m going to try and find somewhere local that is in their known migration path. Lodi, CA holds a crane festival every year, which is tempting, but located over 100 miles away.
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