They're Back...Finally

Each winter our area is the Temporary Home for Thousands of migrating Sandhill Cranes. Local residents, for the most part, eagerly await the arrival of these large strikingly beautiful birds and we tend to get just a little nervous when we think that they are Late getting here. Where are they? Has anyone heard or seen them? Have they met with some natural disaster? Some folks would rather that they just Move on Down the Road...but they are in a very small minority as far as I can tell.

Wikipedia reports that "the Sandhill Crane has one of the longest fossil histories of any bird still found today"..."the oldest unequivocal Sandhill Crane fossil is 2.5 million years old, over one and a half times older than the earliest remains of most living species of birds".

Our Sandhills summer in Southern Canada and The Western Plains of the U.S. There exists a Florida Sandhill Crane Subspecies. This group consists of approximately 5,000 individuals and are year round residents in the Sunshine State. Sandhill Cranes are generally considered an Endangered Species, mostly as a result of Habitat Destruction.