By David Horst sandhill7@gmail.com
I’ve been thinking a lot about cranes lately.
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| Crane #301 (at center) in Florida. Photo courtesy of Harriette Canon |
That’s not all that unusual for
me, but I have had some triggers that got me going in that direction.
One was the March 3 Fox Valley
premiere of “Green Fire: Aldo Leopold and a Land Ethic for Our Time.” The
biographical film on my favorite nature writer, done by the Aldo Leopold
Foundation, was terrific. And it featured some great scenes of huge flocks of
cranes.
Then, on Monday, I was walking
across Houdini Plaza in downtown Appleton and heard a bugling call that has
been absent too long through this unending winter. A single sandhill crane – my
first of the season – was flying high over College Avenue. Tuesday evening I
heard a riotous burst of sandhill enthusiasm flying over the sand hill we call
home.
But those were all warm-ups to an
email I received from Pat Fisher, the New London bird rehabilitator who thinks
about cranes way more than I do.
