November 12, 2020 – It’s that time of year when those amazing bugling and rattling sounds from thousands of Sandhill cranes echo across the countryside of Northern Indiana at the Jasper-Pulaski Fish and Wildlife Area just north of Medaryville, a little over an hour east of Kankakee. Jasper-Pulaski FWA is a great place to witness the fall migration of the Sandhill cranes where they can easily and safely be viewed from the parking lot at the Goose Pasture viewing area or from the nearby viewing platform. As more cranes arrive and numbers continue to grow, so do visitors who want to experience that autumnal spectacle of nature that can quite easily overwhelm the senses with the sights and sounds that have occurred each fall across the great Midwestern prairies for thousands of years. Mid-November is considered the peak time for highest numbers of cranes, with a record number topping 30,000. By mid-December, many will have moved further south, but it’s no secret that there is a healthy winter population of cranes that remain in the general area. Even during the harshest of winters, cranes can be found in the bean and corn stubble foraging. Currently during the fall after leaving the roosting areas for the day, the cranes can be found feeding, socializing, and resting in the harvested agricultural fields and on the grassy areas along the big drainage ditches. Sunrise and sunset are great times to experience large flocks leaving the roosting marshes in the morning and gathering at the Goose Pasture, or again after a day of feeding in the agricultural fields, returning about an hour before sunset in large numbers. There is nothing more surreal than viewing Sandhill cranes in large numbers as far as the eye can see, stretching out across a rolling landscape and looking more like herds of ice-age animals than flocks of birds. It is truly an amazing sight.
