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.