"I am the master of the castle!...er, nest..."Sandy Ridge Reservation is one of our favorite areas close to home. It's made up of reclaimed farm land and is now wetlands, woods and a large meadow. AND it's part of the Lake Erie Birding Trail, so this will be part of "The Longest Twitch!
"On this visit we made our way through the woods and on to grandmothers house...no, no, no...to the wetlands. Silly people.
Among all of the ducks and coots and the Mute Swans of the last post...we had the pleasure of watching the resident pair of Sand Hill Cranes dancing, preening and working on their nest. Did I mention we saw coots? That'll be in the next post. Meanwhile back to the Cranes...
*I just heard from Tim Fairweather, the resident naturalist at Sandy Ridge. The "nest" is actually a Muskrat lodge. I guess the Cranes where helping with the fall redecorating...
It was a beautiful autumn day and the colors added warmth to the chilly woods.
These Cranes are very used to people. Their latest nest in within 15 feet of the multipurpose trial.Dogs are not allowed into the woods or marsh area.
There's always a supervisor to watch the construction.
Here you can see the size of the nest on the right compared to the Crane.
Big birds don't hide very well...
Two are even worse at hide an seek...
The Doodles gives this park a four bench rating...
You have to clean up after al of that hard nest building.
I didn't get close enough in time to watch the dance routines.I did get one silly hop.
Gotta make sure the booty is in order...
Beautiful birds to see Dave and your lovely woods could of been part of my walk here today..
ReplyDeleteGreat birds and fabulous pictures.
ReplyDeleteWhy do Sandhills lick themselves? Because they can. Oh, wait, that's a dog joke, sorry. Great and wonderous pics, my friend.
ReplyDeleteI've always found sand hills to be a rather mesmerizing bird. They used to fly over in the spring and you would hear the call and have to really look hard for the birds as they were very high. Nowadays there are hundreds of them feeding on the ground in the spring.
ReplyDeleteThanks Andrew, it's a beautiful time of year.
ReplyDeleteThank you Bob, they pose so nice, don't they?
Red, it's always amazing to see a bird so large so close!
Hi Dave,
ReplyDeleteMy name is Jane and I'm with Dwellable.
I was looking for blog posts about Sandy Ridge to share on our site and I came across your post...If you're open to it, shoot me an email at jane(at)dwellable(dot)com.
Hope to hear from you :)
Jane