Saturday, January 28, 2006

Dang at the Birds!

Ok, so...We decided we had to go see the Sandhill cranes. I mean it was a beeyooteefool day and you just gotta go do stuff on days like this, right? So we called around trying to get inside info on where to go and none of the usual suspects knew anything, so like we googled Hiwasee refuge and got a road map and went down there and like we got confused on Blythe Ferry road, but then we saw the sign pointing back the way we had just come and so we turned around and went down the road and there was this parking lot, and a bunch of people were looking off in the distance at these little specks and there were like hundreds of them and when we looked through the binoculars they were these really big birds with red on their heads and then a bunch of them came over the horizon and they were sqwauking and held their heads straight up and put out their feet and they landed in the fields, and it's not really all that hard to fly, anyway, it's the last two feet to the ground that cause all the trouble, and then we saw this blue phase snow goose all by himself(her?) and the sorta heavy set guy said those white ones hadn't come in today and we figured out that the "White ones" were Whooping Cranes from talking to the ranger, but they really weren't here today...yet...but they could fly in any moment but they didn't and we watched and watched and the big birds were soooo cool.

But they were still a ways off, so we didn't take any pictures and then we headed home...But then, in the cow pasture...next to the, like, cows...were these really big birds...and they were right beside the road, almost, eating the corn the farmer had put out for the cows and the cows didn't seem to care, so we took this picture of the birds talking to each other, and if you live anywhere near here and don't go and see these birds... Like Dude! There's like thousands of them and they make this noise you can hear for miles...NowatImsayin?...And you gotta go see 'em. It's like awesome like awesome is supposed to be, and the ranger said they had knocked a bunch of corn down(cause the birds can't get to it while it's still standing)so the birds will come up really close to the viewing stand tomorrow when his friends get there, so tomorrow, Sunday, will be a really cool day to go see the birds even if it's raining, I mean REALLY!

4 comments:

  1. Anonymous9:32 PM

    Steve,

    And they are good eating !! Dark meat but real tender. TRWA is considering an open season on them soon. Wisconsin already has one.

    Charlie (wannabe blogger)

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  2. I have a hard time with the hunting season for these things. It ain't much in the way of hunting, unless you count setting up in a baited field hunting. Some of them are nearly tame, such as those in the picture. I've heard they are good eating though.

    Pat says the Ranger was probably mistaken when he told us that was a blue phase snow goose. Probably something less interesting like a domestic hybrid gone feral.

    I would love to see the Whoopers sometime. It's wonderful to see these beasts by the thousands, right down the road.

    Steve

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  3. Anonymous5:20 PM

    I've seen them along the coast and at the Bosque del Apache along the Rio Grande and on both occasions I had the dangdest feeling that they were real and having a great time and I was a ghost-like, unreal bystander to a world full of color and talk.

    The time I saw them along the coast, I'd parked my car under a big oak tree and hoofed it out towards the beach. When I came back (nobody believes me, nobody ever will, oh well...) right next to my car an armadillo and a squirrel were playing Really playing. Now squirrels are very playful characters, but 'dillos?? They made like they were playing catch without a ball.

    Yes, but only one glass of wine in the evening with dinner.

    Yrs anonymously,
    PW

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  4. Anonymous2:42 PM

    ah...but the snow geese...there I was, just minding my own business driving to Malone and there were about a zillion of them in this field. None across the street, none next door, none anywhere else. guess that guy just lived right...or wrong depending on his viewpoint. Remember - a goose craps a pound a day...about the same as a human.

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