Sad Crane News

I do have a sad update on our neighborhood cranes. The family that had two offspring seems to have lost the older one, and it's a tough loss because the young crane was nearly grown. The cranes routinely lose babies when they are fluffy little things, but by the time they are leggy teens, I assume they are going to make it. The family with one offspring now looks like a group of three adults. As I was puzzling over the missing young crane with my neighbor, saying that it was awfully big for an animal to have eaten it, she thought it was most likely hit by a car. She reminded me that this young crane was more likely to wander away from its family than its younger sibling, so maybe it got too adventurous and ran in front of a vehicle. This particular crane family doesn't go anywhere near a busy road, but lately there have been some people driving recklessly on our quiet, dead-end street. I also hear coyotes now and then, and those are big enough to catch an almost-grown crane. That would explain why we never saw a body, like you would think we would have if it was hit by a car. After all, we walk through the neighborhood multiple times per day, so a rather large bird on the side of the road would not have escaped our attention. One thing the crane almost certainly didn't die of is starvation. This particular family knows where all the bird feeders are in the neighborhood, and they steal food from them regularly, if they can be said to be "stealing" the food since they are, in fact, birds. It is pretty hilarious to watch them walk up to a hanging bird feeder meant for little songbirds and just help themselves.

Famous Hat