{"id":305,"date":"2016-10-11T23:12:24","date_gmt":"2016-10-12T06:12:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/gloryjune.com\/wordpress\/?p=305"},"modified":"2016-10-15T06:23:14","modified_gmt":"2016-10-15T13:23:14","slug":"a-cacophony-of-cranes-a-symphony-in-three-parts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/gloryjune.com\/wordpress\/?p=305","title":{"rendered":"A Cacophony of Cranes: A Symphony in Three Parts"},"content":{"rendered":"

Part 1 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\"cranes\"<\/a>The wonder of the earth fills my soul.\u00a0 Ritual interactions with seasonal events are not to be missed.\u00a0 And so, every fall for many years I have made the annual pilgrimage to Jasper-Pulaski Fish and Wildlife Area, just north of Medaryville, Indiana off US421, to see the gathering of the sandhill cranes.\u00a0 Usually starting in October, they arrive in droves, enroute from their summer homes farther north in Canada, Michigan, and Wisconsin, to take a breather for a few days to a few weeks in northwestern Indiana before proceeding on to their winter homes in Georgia and Florida.\u00a0 The sight of thousands of these amazing birds flying in from all directions with their unique bugling cries, then landing, gabbling, dancing in Goose Meadow is an experience that is awesome in the truest sense.\u00a0 Cranes are magnificent creatures that must be seen\u2013and heard\u2013to be appreciated.<\/p>\n

I arrive at least an hour before sunset to see them glide in from the surrounding areas where they have been gleaning the marshlands and harvested fields.\u00a0 Cranes fly with necks and legs outstretched (differing from herons, who fly with their necks crooked in an \u201cS\u201d). Often a whole flock will hit a thermal and essentially stall, landing almost straight downward feet first with an elegant awkwardness.<\/p>\n

Usually on weekdays the crowds are smaller at the observation platform constructed on the east side of Goose Meadow; hearing the cranes is a vital part of the experience and sometimes it is difficult over the babble of idiots talking about the great bargains they found at Walmart (something I actually overheard).\u00a0 Why do people make the trip to see the cranes and then talk the whole time\u2013is it just to say they did?\u00a0 They should stay home and watch YouTube videos.\u00a0 The rest of us want to revel in this glorious display and hear the crane music. No talking in church!<\/p>\n

I always stay until dark, nearly always the last to leave, alone with the cranes and the night.\u00a0 I\u2019ve walked back to the car in moonlight, with bats darting overhead, my soul astir.\u00a0 Once, leaving the gabble and mutter of the meadow, I started down the road, and suddenly there was a huge rush and roar, and all the cranes rose at once to head out to their roosting areas.\u00a0 It was almost pitch black and I couldn\u2019t see them, but I heard the magnificent beat of the wings.\u00a0 I was in the very Presence.<\/p>\n

Part 2<\/p>\n

The glacial moraine of south central Wisconsin has held a place in my heart for decades.\u00a0 Years ago, I often escaped to its rolling terrain and granite outcroppings when I lived in Chicago.\u00a0 Since then, I\u2019d passed nearby a time or two and thought of returning to the area, and finally, several years ago, I did.\u00a0 But as I was leaving Baraboo, heading back home, I discovered that the International Crane Foundation was nearby. How did I miss that? Darn! I had to go back.<\/p>\n

And I did, twice.\u00a0 The International Crane Foundation (ICF)Home – International Crane Foundation<\/a> was co-founded in 1973 by two pre-PhD ornithologists, George Archibald and the late Ron Sauey, fellow graduate students at Cornell.\u00a0 Both young men admired early environmentalist Aldo Leopold (whom I regard as a spiritual guide), and, as it turned out, Sauey\u2019s family owned land just down the road from Leopold\u2019s legendary Shack, featured in his masterpiece Sand County Almanac<\/i>.\u00a0 The origins of today\u2019s ICF began on that land, not very far from their present, larger property, which houses research facilities, a library, and mating pairs of all fifteen of the world\u2019s cranes.<\/p>\n

Cranes were\u2013and remain\u2013greatly threatened, largely due to the disappearance or compromise of their various habitats. Dr. Archibald set out to raise cranes in captivity and release them in the wild and originated a number of techniques to prevent chicks from imprinting on their human helpers. Whooping cranes, a North American species, were nearing extinction and Archibald worked extensively with a female named Tex, mimicking mating calls and dances of the male.\u00a0 Tex finally did lay a fertile egg through artificial insemination, but tragically, she was killed by a pack of marauding raccoons shortly after successfully hatching her chick.<\/p>\n

\"george-archibald-tex-saving-whooping-cranes-1-png-662x0_q70_crop-scale\"<\/a>Dr. Archibald was director of the International Crane Foundation from its inception until 2000, and is still very much involved with the organization. Today he writes, lectures, and works with the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), heading the Species Survival Commission for cranes, traveling to crane habitats all over the world, including the Demilitarized Zone between North and South Korea. In 1984, relatively early in his career, Dr. Archibald won a coveted MacArthur \u201cgenius\u201d award, and in 2006 he won the inaugural Indianapolis Prize for his life-long dedication to crane conservation, to name but a few of the many honors he has received.<\/p>\n

Part 3<\/p>\n

What better way to celebrate summer solstice than with the glorious cranes?\u00a0 The International Crane Foundation hosts a fundraiser every summer called \u201cAn Evening with the Cranes.\u201d\u00a0 Local restaurants set up stations of good things to eat and drink throughout the public part of the facility, along the paths that wind past the pens of the cranes.<\/p>\n

The sun was bright and hot at 5pm, here deep in the Central Time Zone (as Indiana is supposed to be).\u00a0 The ICF public area is nestled amidst a restored tall-grass prairie, so shade was at a premium, but never mind, it was all about the cranes.\u00a0 There was the gorgeous pair of whoopers, which I could watch for hours.<\/p>\n

\"img_3802\"<\/a><\/p>\n

And then there was this stately Sarus crane, a huge bird some six feet tall (I had to look up at him!) and over 50 years old!\u00a0 Majnu had lost his lifelong mate a year or two before and had not been doing well. Then he was introduced to a sweet young thing, and in due course came chicks. He\u2019s doing fine.<\/p>\n

\"croppedsarus\"<\/p>\n

Many of my most revered environmentalists are long gone:\u00a0 John Muir, Aldo Leopold, Rachel Carson.\u00a0 Dr. George Archibald, happily, is very much still with us, still dedicated to his life\u2019s mission of saving cranes.\u00a0 And there he was, amiably chatting with various \u201ccraniacs.\u201d\u00a0 To me, he\u2019s a rock star!<\/p>\n

I summoned the courage\u2013hardly necessary\u2013to go up to talk with him, sharing a little about my work. He graciously introduced me to the current director of ICF, even as more people clamored to chat. I was elated. But two days later, leaving Wisconsin, I wanted to stop in briefly at ICF once more, perhaps to hear the cacophony of cranes and look in the shop\u2013and there he was, as gracious as before. \u00a0 We talked of cranes and wonder.\u00a0\"gjgeorgereduced\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Part 1 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0The wonder of the earth fills my soul.\u00a0 Ritual interactions with seasonal events are not to be missed.\u00a0 And so, every fall for many years … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[5,31],"tags":[63,64,65,66,32,55],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/gloryjune.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/305"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/gloryjune.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/gloryjune.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/gloryjune.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/gloryjune.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=305"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"http:\/\/gloryjune.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/305\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":318,"href":"http:\/\/gloryjune.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/305\/revisions\/318"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/gloryjune.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=305"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/gloryjune.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=305"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/gloryjune.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=305"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}