November 11, 2021 – Chilly early November mornings in the Midwest bring sensational enhancements that satisfy the consciousness. There are the familiar smells of wood-burning stoves and mixed stands of trees in delightful shades of umber above their sturdy black trunks surrounded in silvery pockets of shifting ground fog that floats like ghostly spirits across the countryside. The senses are quickly lifted and seem to fall under a spell of nostalgic longing to the observer. A subtle change presents itself with color and complexity during this most thought-provoking and inspiring season of the year, the back-end period. Above in the slow-rolling gray skies, small flocks of low flying and noisy Canada geese are sharing airspace with much larger flocks of those great birds, the Sandhill cranes. As far as the eye can see, hundreds of Sandhill cranes, flying in all directions, have left their nightly roosts and are heading to their daytime feeding and socializing areas along the ditches and agricultural fields of Northern Indiana. The loud rattling calls of the Sandhill cranes fill the morning air, faint sounds of cranes off in the distance can be heard across the fields and past the woods over a mile away. Jasper-Pulaski Fish and Wildlife Area near Medaryville in Northern Indiana is a stopover during autumn for Sandhill cranes moving south for the winter. Each year the southbound Sandhill cranes begin arriving in northern Indiana in October. The numbers peak in late November through December. Thousands of cranes move out of the area and head further south towards the Gulf states by the end of December, but many cranes remain where they take advantage of a nearby power plant where they find open water year-round. For thousands of years, Sandhill cranes have followed the same routes south during the fall migration taking them where fair weather and food can sustain them through the cold winter months. With a fossil record dating back two and a half million years, Sandhill cranes are one of the oldest living bird species in North America. There is not a painting so beautiful as the experience of watching a flock of Sandhill cranes illuminated by the morning sun gliding low across a backdrop of autumn color.
