Elegant sandhill cranes plentiful in Minnesota after steep decline in 1940s

My first encounter with sandhill cranes was on a March day about 20 years ago. Our family was on a spring break trip, traveling across Nebraska on I-80 in the Kearney area, along the Platte River.

We saw thousands of these majestic birds. Some were standing in fields, some standing in the river's shallows, while flocks of all sizes were circling overhead. It was the captivating calls of the sandhill cranes — a vibrant trumpeting, rattling "gar-oo-oo" — that was audible for more than a mile and capped off this memorable nature experience.

Before European settlement, and for eons of time, sandhill cranes were quite common across much of what's now Minnesota. But they were among the large birds such as whooping cranes and giant Canada geese that were decimated by market and subsistence hunters during the 1800s. They were shot from spring to fall, and by the 1940s fewer than 50 remained in Minnesota. It's no wonder that I as a young bird-watcher never saw one. State and federal protection, research and habitat safeguards, plus the powerful resilience of the sandhill cranes themselves, allowed them to make a remarkable recovery. Now these elegant cranes are widespread and common across much of the state. As an example, a pair nested next to the River Bend Nature Center in Faribault this spring and now observers can easily see the two almost full-grown juveniles.

Tall stately birds with long necks and legs and fairly long bills, the greater sandhill cranes stand about 4 feet tall, have a wingspread of nearly 7 feet and weigh up to about 12 pounds. They fly with their necks extended, not folded back as do herons. They travel in noisy flocks, flying high. Often I see them disappear into the clouds. Their habitat includes marshes, prairies, grasslands and even Arctic tundra.

Sandhills mate for life, which can be 20 years or more. Nests are each a mound of plant materials in a marsh or on dry ground. The one to three eggs are incubated by both sexes, hatch in 30 to 32 days, and the young can walk soon after eggs open. They begin to fly at 10 weeks. Both parents feed the young, called colts because of their lanky legs. Young remain with parents until the next spring. Our Minnesota sandhill cranes winter mostly in the southern United States but some fly to northern Mexico.

Jim Gilbert's observations have been part of the Minnesota Weatherguide Environment Calendars since 1977, and he is the author of five books on nature in Minnesota. He taught and worked as a naturalist for 50 years.