Fly-overs are common in Fort Bend Winter and Spring . . .
The Sandhill Crane is one of the few cranes species in the world not endangered.
Cranes hold their necks and legs straight out in flight. While they are about the size of the Great Blue Heron, herons hold their necks in an S shape in flight and often "walk Egyptian." Sandhills make a deep, rolling trumpeting and rattling sound.
Sandhills land in grasslands, meadows and wetlands where they eat insects, seeds and invertebrates. You may be lucky to see one in a nearby pasture in Fort Bend, but are much more likely to hear or see a fly-over. Sometimes across the light of the moon.
Sandhills are more gray to taupe. Adults have the distinctive red eye patch. Immatures are mottled gray.
Fort Bend County is in one of the two major southern routes that “feeds” a complex migration path that converges where 500,000 cranes come together on a central part of the Platte River in Nebraska before moving into breeding grounds in Canada. This occurs between March 1 and April 7th.
Fly-overs in Fort Bend. Living in a migratory path of many species of birds makes Fort Bend an interesting place to live, but sometimes challenging if you’ve caught the identify-the-bird bug.
Besides the marvel of the great flocks of Sandhill Cranes, the you can see Whooping Cranes and American White Pelicans in a video produced by the Crane Trust, which started out to save the Whooping Cranes thirty years ago. These are all birds plus the Snow and Greater White-fronted Geese are all fly-overs you can enjoy now in Fort Bend. You can often see the White Pelicans on our larger ponds . . . and occassionally may catch a Sandhill in a nearby pasture.
Don't miss the following video! It is inspiring.
See a video produced by the Crane Trust on the convergence of 500,000 Sandhills on the Platte River in Nebraska. It is magnificent.
Please click on the photos to enlarge them.
Photos copyrighted by Quail Valley resident and international birder Margaret Sloan. View her international and national bird pictures by pressing this link.
See a bird you don't recognize in Fort Bend? Margaret has photographed 150+ bird species just in her suburban backyard alone. Narrow your initial search by viewing her full photo album of local birds, Birds of Quail Valley by pressing this link. They are organized by types of birds, so if it's a water bird for example, you may find one that helps you narrow your search. Then if you "google in" the name of the bird, you'll get info and all kinds of information and images. Sometimes if a species is remarkably different from adult you may find nothing, contact us and we'll do our best to help.
Researched and posted by Janice Scanlan
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