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SANDHILL
CRANES
COUNTED
THE EVENING OF:
MARCH 2007
9 - 12 Cranes (First "Official" Arrivals -
(Among 90 other
cranes believed to be birds theat probably wintered over in the area)
13 - 900 Cranes! (Our first "big" day) The next
morning there appeared to be a few hundred more than that.)
14 - 110 (but seemed like more when they left the next
morning)
15 - 17 (may be part of wintering flock)
16 - 3,000! - or very close to it - many groups
kept landing over a long period of time making
counting tricky
17 - Wonderful Liftoff this morning.
- 400 Cranes arrived this afternoon.
(Sorry this
was posted so late - we went to a fantastic Sweet Sunny South concert
this evening)
18 - 160 cranes
19 - from 700 (Evelyn) to 1,500 + (Dave)
[I think there are at least 1,000, but I got there late
(after
sunset) and after a small front came through, and found lots of cranes
in tall grass and shrubs and couldn't see them all)
20 - 550 cranes at the morning count the next day [ evening of the 20th estimate -
600, +/- 100 cranes. This was a quick estimate made at
6:30 p.m. Even if the count is not accurate there's still
plenty
to enjoy in the morning.]
21 - 50+ cranes this evening. [The cold weather in the morning
delayed liftoff of last night's cranes.]
22 - 0. Sometimes, zero happens.
23 - 0. And sometimes, when the weather's not good, zero
happens more than once. - Stay tuned, there are
many more cranes to come.
24 - 0. Another day of ugly weather. Forecast for
tomorrow is much better.
25 - 200 (but there may be 300) with lots
of ducks on the water and in the air. A perfect evening
at
the reservoir for a tailgate party, so we didn't
work on a
strict count. Several cranes appeared very high and probably
bypassed Hart's Basin. Word from the San Luis
Valley is
that there are still alot of cranes there.
26 - 374 - This number is according to our statistician Anne W., and an
earlier assist from Nancy, during our tailgate party throughout
another perfect evenng at Fruitgrowers. Many afternoon
high-flying cranes were noted by-passing Hart's Basin today.
Evie and. later, Dave stopped by with their ornithological
observations.
27 - 120 Evie said she suspects that these cranes may be
birds that stayed back from last night because of the high winds, but
we're not sure.
28 - 0. The return of winter weather speaks for itself.
It would be unusual if cranes showed up tomorrow afternoon /
evening.
29 - 60 cranes. go figure. (snow this evening)
30 - 126
31 - 0. Now this is a surprise! As nice as the
weather was
you would expect a rasonably sizable number. Maybe
better
luck tomorrow!
APRIL
1 - 900 - Good day for cranes to fly. I thought
there could
be close to 1,000, but Evie pegged it at 850 so I backed it off because
it's April Fool's Day.
2 - 0 The big winds that blew this morning's
cranes north did not blow in any new ones from the south.
3 - 1,000 (or more) Lots of cranes among the
shrubs, making an accurate count impossible.
4 - 250 says Evie. Another nice day but with some
wind.
5 - 20 ( First there
were 20 and then there were 4 so the thought is that there are
20 . . . with 16 of the cranes hiding.)
6 - 525 Maybe more - we'll check it in the morning.
7 - 180 Sorry
it was posted so late - Jim W. got another year older so some
of us had to do something about it!
8 - 20 New ones or leftovers? Cold, wet dreary
day. [But this
morning there were about 80 lifting off above the reservoir]
9 - 43 According to the official source.
10 - (9 that night) Except 25 took off the next
morning , so you know they were avoiding Evie
11 - 0 Another colder, windy day
12 & 13 - zeros [The
weather was so miserable that no real counts were made because a
cursory look did not reveal any cranes but a dozen were sighted leaving
the morning of the 14th.]
14 - 100
- A rough estimate this evening because the cranes a moving around alot
and dodging in and out of the tall vegetation.
WE
ARE GETTING TO THE END OF THE SPRING CRANE MIGRATION, SO
CATCH THEM WHILE YOU CAN. WE'LL BE SLACKING OFF THE
COUNT ON THIS WEBSITE IN THE NEXT FEW DAYS, BUT WE'LL KEEP ADDING
NOTABLE SIGHTINGS OF OTHER BIRDS FROM TIME TO TIME.
General
disclaimer:
We
try to count Cranes around sunset
to
include the late arrivals,
and
to provide you with an idea
of
how many birds you may encounter
the
next morning at “liftoff” (usually
between
9:00 and 10:00 a.m.,
or
10:00 and 11:00 a.m daylight savings time).
Crane
counts are estimates of what
was
seen by one or more observers.
The
bigger the number of Cranes
the
less likely the number is accurate.
These
numbers are most useful
when
looked at as relative numbers
of
Cranes from day to day.
Sometimes
the counts we post
in
the evening are modified the
next
morning when we feel more
confident
with the accuracy of
the
morning count.
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OTHER
BIRD SPECIES SIGHTED 2007
at,
or adjacent to, the RESERVOIR:
Canada Geese
Bald Eagle
Northern Harrier
Mallard
Green-Winged Teal
Redhead
Commom Merganser
Greater Yellowlegs
Killdeer
Great Blue Heron
European Starling
Ferruginous Hawk
American Kestral
Black-billed Magpie
Northern Pintail
American Coot
Western Grebe
Yelow-Headed Blackbird
Ringed-Neck Pheasant
Cinnamon Teal
Red-Winged Blackbird
Ringed-neck Duck
Ruddy Duck
Northern Shoveler
Mountain Bluebird
Turkey Vulture
Gadwall
Blue-winged Teal
Eurasian collared Dove (Eckert area)
American Avocet
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Crane Sightings and Other Observations at Fruitgrowers
Reservoir and the Surrounding Area
