This is a first---

Al Hansen

Al Hansen

Well-known member
Have you ever seen a sandhill crane swim? Yesterday, Bev and I decided to go down to our friend's pond where they are building an RV park. There was one crane along the shore line of the pond on the north side while we sat in the car on the south side. I am assuming that it had been winged by a bb or something just because cranes are always with other cranes. Well, it wanted to get to the other side and began swimming across the pond. I have never seen that before. The water is over 3' deep in this spot.

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Back in September they gave me permission to hunt teal here. That is when there were about 400 birds on the pond. It left many great memories and the one forever etched was when Chip found out that he would have to swim to get to the duck. He had never been in deep water before and as he dashed out to retrieve that teal he sunk out of sight momentarily! He learned quickly!

We sat on that little island on the left side of the picture where the young cottonwood tree is growing, hunkered down by the cattails. It was a perfect spot because most of the teal were to the west of us in this pond that extended about another 200 feet. They liked flying west to east and then peeling off towards the refuge which was just a half mile south of this spot. By the way, it is only 7 miles from our home.

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After this we decided to go visit our friends and when we left for home, I just had to take this shot of their neighbor's "hay eating machine". That is what most of the locals call them.
Al

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I've seen cranes in 1 or 2 feet of water but never swimming. I have no doubt that they can swim. The distance must have been short enough that flying was too much trouble and walking was out of the question.

Fine looking hay eating machine.
 
Good Morning Al,
Nice looking pond, we saw around 100 + Snow Geese resting and jumping over to the winter wheat during our Bosque hunt from this pond. It was nice of them to provide the outhouse and the blind on the east side.
Dennis S. (Rio Rancho, NM)
 
The distance was very short maybe 30 feet of swimming distance and the rest it could have walked. Tim thought perhaps that bird had TB or cholera.
Al
 
That area will be a new birder RV park by next year when the birds start coming into Bosque del Apache NWR. This is also the pond where I had so much fun hunting teal back in Sept. The land owners hadn't started with any of their work yet. Too bad I can't go back to hunt it.
Al
 
Good morning, Doug. Good to hear from you. Have you been trapping many animals this winter? How about exotic colors in mink?
Al
 
Al
I live in NE Ohio, we have at least a foot of snow and sub zero temps, no open water. Yesterday I saw three cranes flying in a v not all that high up. Never saw them here before?
Can anyone shed some light on this?
Thanks
Ken
 
Al-thanks for the PM. I know just how you feel. Neat picture of sand hill. Next thing you know they will be selling floating sand hill crane decoys. Jim
 
Al- that's really neat about the sandhill. In Central FL we see them often enough flying over the marsh, sometimes "decoying" to the calls we make when we see or hear them, though they rarely come in for a landing. Sometimes there're LOTS, other times it's just a pair that we're messing with. Though I've never seen them swimming. Very cool.
 
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