GRANTSBURG, WIS. - The morning was a gift, the sun appearing in the clearest of skies and setting fire to the eastern horizon. With the sun came a warm golden veil that draped everything in its path: human, creature, landscape.
As if that wasn't enough beauty to fill the spirit, the horizon began filling, too, with movement and chatter. It was mid-autumn, and greater sandhill cranes were center stage and rising up. All good because it was the sandhills that I and outdoors writer and photographer Jeff Moravec were up early to witness, a migratory delight here that can extend well into November.
We had dropped in on one of the cranes' favorite rest stops along their journey south: Crex Meadows Wildlife Area near the village of Grantsburg. The refuge is the largest of its kind in Wisconsin, and a few hours before sunrise and in a chill south of 30 degrees, we made the 90-minute drive north from the Twin Cities. Once there, just blocks north of the village, we left civilization, following a mainly dirt road maze past prairie and wetlands.
All seemed asleep while things transitioned from night to day. Then, sparrows darted across Phantom Lake Road and flew for a time in front of my car headlights, as if guiding us deeper into the refuge. It was a small but fitting gesture that brought to mind the idea that something bigger awaited us.
The sky took in more light and with it more life. We saw an egret standing sentry in a sedge marsh. Shorebirds milled around. There were some other early rising humans out, too, who beat us here and joined us in curiosity at what morning would deliver.
Crex Meadows Wildlife Area spreads out more than 30,000 acres, with 40 miles of roads coursing through it. I found it hard to imagine that such a vast, pristine area was in a second life of sorts after its wetlands were drained and the area's ecology upset in the late 1800s in the name of industry and, at times, agriculture. Thank goodness the state of Wisconsin began efforts to restore the area to its brush prairie and marshes in the mid-1940s. Now it's a birding destination like few others anywhere, a gem in the Midwest.
Sandhills, whose numbers are stable or even increasing, have for decades found a safe haven here during their migration toward Florida and points south, and that became more apparent by the minute during our visit. Some were anchored on muddy peninsulas, long necks and red crowns poking above marsh grasses. Others propelled through the sky, all legs and wings, or dropped their gear for unexpectedly graceful landings. For all the building action, there was a synchronicity that I found calming, this ancient rhythm playing out on another autumn morning.
Bob Rorke of Edina exited his Subaru nearby, and later joined us in the silence and new light. Cranes came and went, or suddenly appeared overhead, many likely headed to feed on corn and soybeans in the farm fields south of town and Hwy. 70.
