HORTONVILLE -- Thirty-two was the number I entered on the form under "Total number of sandhill cranes observed or heard."It is the biggest number I've recorded in some years for the International Crane Foundation's annual Midwest Crane Count, which took place Saturday. But the most I saw on the ground at any given time was two.
My statistics were built on cranes flying in, flying out or flying over. I heard them congregating, but they chose to settle in a depression behind a few rows of last year's corn stalks, just out of my view.
I'd been in place since 5:30 a.m. in site No. 36, a farm field in our former neighborhood near Hortonville.
Within minutes, crane calls and turkey gobbles pierced the dull early light. Fifteen minutes into my watch, the sun already trimmed the tree line in an orange glow. The silhouette of a small flock of geese took advantage of the blazing background.
The light came up quickly, confirming that those potential deer out in the field were actually dead stalks of last year's mullein.
My first flyover came at 5:52 a.m. The crane passed nearly directly over my position, low enough for me to hear the rush of wind through flight feathers. If someone ever figures our how to get that whirring, whooshing sound out of a musical instrument, his or her career is set.
Two minutes later I record my first crane walking. It is in the spot where I usually see the cranes gathering. Site No. 36 has been my crane count territory for more than 15 years.
Four sandhills fly over, three head in, in formation for landing. Then out of sight.
So it continues.
It's 6:20 a.m. now and the sun is now fully above the horizon as another crane flies in, taking my count to13. I hear the distinctive unison call of a breeding pair of cranes off to the west. One partner starts the call and the other joins in, their voices reaching a crescendo in a single call.
The birds seem to mark the 6:30 half hour with a cacophony of calls coming from two distinctive spots in the woods. "Cacophony" is a word made to describe the sound of a flock of cranes.
In the final hour of my watch, cranes fly in one, two, three or four at a time, taking my total to 32. A few fly close enough for a 300 mm lens to capture them. All in all, a good morning.
Back at Mosquito Hill Nature Center near New London, counters are reporting their tallies, and it's been a good day. The observer for the wildlife observation area at Van Patton Road on State 54 east of New London checks in with 90 cranes, a few trumpeter swans and a new eagle's nest complete with eaglets.
From the traditional top site near Shiocton, naturalist Steve Petznick records 236 cranes, a high number even for that site.
The count occurs against a backdrop of a Conservation Congress proposal to initiate a crane hunt. The proposal argues that 17 states already have crane hunts and there are 700,000 cranes in North America. But Wisconsin's crane population is estimated at 15,000 and the International Crane Foundation warns that — after 30 years working to re-establish sandhill cranes — it is unsure that the breeding population would be sustainable if there were a hunt.
I just know that at 5:30 a.m., in counting spots across the Midwest, counters were hoping to see more cranes, not fewer.
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