As I pulled into the parking lot outside my suburban office building today I heard a funny noise. Squeaky fan belt? I turned off the engine. The noise increased. I looked up and saw a V-formation, hundreds of large birds heading south. Geese, I guess. Makes sense this time of year.
But these geese must be a different breed from the ones around here. Ours are common as House Sparrows and have nested in this parking lot. We see them all winter. You gotta wonder if our local geese even heard of a V-formation.
The birds passing overhead must be wilder geese following ancient instinct. I remember reading that some Native Americans called this time of year a “cohunk,” from the sound geese made flying over. We say honk; the natives said cohunk. Close enough.
But wait a second. Something feels wrong. Take a second look, man! These can’t be geese. The sound is off. I was hearing chirpy calls, not honks, not cohunks. I got my binoculars from the trunk and figured: there goes my workday schedule, heading south with the birds.
I looked up and got excited. In the binoculars I could see that these were not geese. They were cranes. Hundreds of long-necked, long-legged, wide-winged, wild, noisy and flapping Sandhill Cranes. I stayed in that parking lot a long time, racking up a daily sighting I never expected on this day, in this place.
As I watched, some of the V-formations broke apart. The birds circled and lost altitude. Were they looking for a place to land? There’s a preserve nearby with ponds. Maybe they were eyeballing it. But they drifted generally south. A few ragged strings of V-formation started up again, although most birds stayed disorganized.
Sandhill Cranes. Birds with six-foot wingspans. Heading from northern wilds to southern swamps. Maybe they were slowing down to sightsee as they passed the big city with its cloverleafs and tall buildings. Who knows. But they made me late for work, not that I cared about work at that moment. Hey, Sandhill Cranes. Hundreds of them!
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Yesterday, where US 1 crosses FL 406 in Titusville, I watched a bald eagle fly to a tall light pole. He chased an osprey off the pole and perched. It was as if the eagle owned this land.