Show stopper: Cranes sing, dance, mesmerize

Show stopper
Cranes sing, dance, mesmerize
by Rebecca Wainscott

I didn’t know about cranes until I moved to the Kickapoo Valley. My first sighting was on one of those side roads off Highway 131 just south of La Farge, in a wetland area close to the Kickapoo River. It was early spring, and the cranes were stepping slowly through the reeds and cattails, barely visible. I’d heard enough to know these were sandhill cranes, looking for a place to nest.

My next crane experience was on Highway 56 just at the east edge of Viola. A pair walked right across the road in front of my truck. I got to see them close up and personal. Unreal, how tall they are, almost five feet. I’d never seen a bird that tall.

But I didn’t get to hear a crane until a few years later. There was a very early spring. It was unseasonably warm, and the first weekend in April I was already out in my vegetable garden, digging dandelions and turning over the beds. Out of nowhere I heard a sound that I had never heard before in my life. I looked around quickly. It had to be coming from somewhere very close by—it seemed to be right in my ear. It sounded as if someone had crossed a goose with a loon and a turkey. Dear God, what was this? I looked up, and there, way up in the sky, barely within sight, were three cranes, circling on the strong southern thermals blowing that day, and they were singing. I was hooked.

Soon after, I happened upon a book called The Birds of Heaven, by Peter Matthiessen. If you have any interest in cranes, read this book. It is marvelously written. And then, on your next day trip to Devil’s Lake, take an hour and visit the International Crane Foundation just south of Baraboo. There you will see, and most likely hear from, any of the 15 varieties of cranes that still exist on the planet. If you’re very lucky you may also get to see them dance.

All of these crane species are ancient creatures. Sandhill fossils in particular have been dated back almost 10 million years. Standing within arm’s reach of a six– foot–tall sarus crane looking you straight in the eye is like looking into a prehistoric age. The grey-crowned crane, whose feathers look as if they were painted onto its body, is exquisitely perfect, the colors beyond belief.

If you catch the crane craze, possibly falling into the “craniac” category, you might consider driving to Nebraska in mid to late March, as I did this year. It’s here that, along a 75-mile stretch of the Platte River, almost 500,000 sandhill cranes stop over to rest, feed, and mate before continuing their migration northward. The spectacle lasts about six weeks. The folks at Rowe Sanctuary will take you out to blinds right on the river and for two hours you will witness flock after flock, literally thousands of cranes, flying in to roost for the night after feeding out in the fields all day. If the sound of one or two cranes bugling calls your heart to open, I assure you, it is not possible to imagine the sound of 20,000 cranes gossiping about their day, all at the same time. It’s a vibrational experience I will carry in my bones for a long time.

When I moved here almost 15 years ago I knew this land was special, but I didn’t know I’d get cranes too. Now, while landscaping a client’s yard out in the Kickapoo Valley, I’ll hear that unison call out in the wetlands somewhere nearby. For a moment all work stops, all conversation ceases, and everybody smiles. The cranes are back.

Rebecca Wainscott lives in Viroqua with her daughter Merla and operates Sacred Ground Landscape Design. She is a confirmed “craniac.”