How to catch a crane (or not)

Seems some gremlins had a hold of my computer last night, and I was unable to publish my post.  So, I went to bed and tried again this morning.  It worked this morning, so I guess I’ll have two posts for today.

 

Late yesterday afternoon, I headed out with four other people to try to catch one of the unbanded cranes.

We went to one of the two acre holding pens where captive raised young cranes are acclimated each fall to their natural habitat.  An automatic corn feeder has been placed there to attract in a mated pair where the female is unbanded.  We are running out of time to catch her, as breeding season is right around the corner.

A loop of these snares is placed in the ground about ten feet out from the feeder.

You can see that each thin stake is placed into the ground every few inches with a snare loop of fishing type line attached to each stake.

Each set of stakes is weighted down with a section of rebar.  There are 50-100 stakes in each set, and it takes several sets to surround the feeder. 

Setting the stakes is an exacting chore.  Here biologist, Lauren, and intern, Katy, work at setting them up while fellow volunteer, Jay, looks on.  The plan is for the cranes to come walking in to the feeder, and get one of their feet caught in a noose.  When that happens, Lauren comes running from a hiding place behind some shrubs on the outside of the enclosure to subdue the caught crane.

In the meantime, the interns, Jay, and myself will be watching from up in this blind.  If a bird is captured, the interns will also run out of the blind to help the biologist. 

Since the blind is about 10-12’ off of the ground, and these are the steepest, tallest steps I’ve ever climbed, you can bet I would exit sedately! 

This was my view out of the slit in the blind.  Notice the corn feeder right in the center, and that’s Lauren heading to her hiding place.  It only took about twenty minutes for the pair to fly into the enclosure.  They usually come in to feed around 4:30 before getting ready to roost in the pond on the left hand side of the enclosure.

 

They came flying in to the far side of the enclosure and immediately began a round of raucous calling.  Then the male began dancing in front of the female.  She couldn’t resist the invitation, and responded with her own leaps, bounds, and bowing with wings up.  It was surely a sight to behold!  The dance of life!  (Just like on National Geographic!)  They were too far away to take a picture, and I didn’t want to spook them with my telephoto lens.

 

After the ritual was over, both birds began to slowly make their way toward the feeder.  We all collectively held our breaths, but it was not to be.  There was something about the new nooses that Jay had built that put them off.  Dang!  They then sauntered back to the other side to feed in the grass.  We thought we had a good chance of catching her since we’ve had false nooses laying around the feeder for a week.  Then they took off, so it was time to collect everything once again and hike the quarter mile or so back through the mud to the trucks before it was dark. 

 

Jay thinks the camouflage tape in the stakes may have put them off.  He plans to remove that and just die them a brown color.  Hope that works.  While I was disappointed we didn’t trap one of the cranes, it couldn’t take away the joy of seeing the beautiful dance of the cranes!

 

Thanks for stopping by…. talk to you later,  Judy