Humming-bird Hawk-moth

Photo Credit – Graeham Mounteney, Butterfly Conservation

 

Hummingbirds are small, often migratory birds that inhabit the Americas. They have compact bodies, long, narrow beaks, and relatively long blade-like wings. The latter allows them to fly in every direction and to hover. Typically, they migrate alone and travel up to 500 miles a day. The people of California benefit from the beauty, courage, and entertainment of hummingbirds in California.

The weight of hummingbirds is typically less than two pennies and the noise their wings make gives them their name. Distribution of this family is limited to the American continents, with approximately 350 species, including 15 in the United States and Canada. If you see one in Europe, it is likely that you either observe an escaped cage bird or a Hummingbird Hawk-moth, an insect that looks like a hummingbird when feeding. The moth’s range is Asia, North Africa, and Southern Europe. Let’s start with hummingbirds generally and finish with California’s hummingbirds.

 

Anna’s Hummingbird (male)

Photo Credit – National Audubon Society

 

First, the evolution of hummingbirds is a puzzle. The oldest hummingbird fossils are not in the Americas but in Germany, Poland, and France, and date back 30 plus million years. Today, these birds are extinct. Did they die out because of competition for food or because of an increasingly cold climate in Europe that persuaded them to move across the land bridge between Siberia and Alaska? From here, they could have colonized southwards and developed a diverse and rapidly expanding population. Alternatively, could there have been a natural convergence of evolution and the New World species developed independently?  It is probable that we will never know. 

Hummingbirds Range

Photo Credit – Erik Stokstad, Science

 

Hummingbirds feed on nectar (occasionally insects) and consume up to 160 per cent of their body mass daily. They have a bias for red flowers and red feeders. This is in part due to the rich source of food, and partly because they possess trichromatic visual senses that prefer the range yellow to red and mute other colors such as blue.  However, the main attraction is the quality of nectar, and it does not need to be colored! There is no need for you to add red food dye to the water you place in the hummingbird feeder. These birds are highly territorial and will fight to protect their mate, source of food, and their nest. This includes attacking bees, butterflies, and moths. I have even seen a hummingbird chase a raptor, presumably because it came too close to the hummingbird’s nest.

  

Black-chinned Hummingbird (male)

Photo Credit – Be Your Own Birder

 

Broad-tailed Hummingbird (male)

Photo Credit – eBird

 

There are seven hummingbird species present in California. Only three appear regularly in my part of California, north of San Francisco, so I must travel to see the other four. Because hummingbirds are small and fast, it is difficult to distinguish one species from another. The four requiring that I travel are as follows:

1. Black-chinned Hummingbirds – small, slender birds that, while uncommon, are broadly spread across the state except in my area north of San Francisco. A medium to long-distance migrant, these hummingbirds arrive during April/May and depart for western Mexico and southern Texas during July/August. A few remain residents year-round in southern California.  Males are distinguished by a black head, metallic-green body, white breast, and an iridescent violet lower throat. Females are less dramatically colored.&nsbp;

 

2. Broad-tailed Hummingbirds – these are medium-sized hummingbirds found only in the northwest of California and are present from late May to early August. They are common in the high-altitude areas of the Sierra Nevada, although their numbers have recently declined due to the destruction of their open space breeding habitat. They are migrants that winter in southern Mexico and Guatemala. Males are distinguished by an iridescent green back, on their throat a bright rose-red gorget (named after neck clothing and armor worn by men and women from the medieval times onwards), and white eye rings.
    

   
   
   Calliope Hummingbird (male)

   Photo Credit – Cornell Lab of Ornithology

   
   
   Costa’s Hummingbird (male)

   Photo Credit – Cornell Lab of Ornithology

    

3. Calliope Hummingbirds – these are long distance migrants that pass along California’s Pacific coast on their way between Mexico and their breeding grounds in the northwest. During fall, they return south but use a route along the Rockies and Sierras. They are tiny, under four inches in length, and the smallest birds in California. Males are distinguished by a long, magenta-colored throat with similar colored feathers organized in streaks passing down the neck; the head and upper parts are metallic green, and the breast is white. They are named after Calliope, a Muse in Greek mythology, who inspired Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey.

 

4. Costa’s Hummingbirds – are smallish, medium-distance migrants that winter in Mexico, and some remain resident year-round in southern California. They are common in the Mohave Desert and nearby gardens, and in the sage scrub of coastal California as far north as Santa Maria. Males are distinguished by a large, iridescent purple gorget that covers their head and flares along the sides of their neck. They are named after Louis Marie Pantaleon Costa de Beauregard, a 19th-century Sardinian nationalist who was fond of collecting hummingbirds.Now let me turn to the three species I am most familiar with because they appear in my neighborhood, starting with Anna’s Hummingbirds; these are by far the most common species of hummingbird in my part of northern California.
    

   
   Anna’s Hummingbirds

   Photo Credit – National Geographic

    

5. Anna’s Hummingbirds – These medium-sized, stocky, flashy, feisty, and fearless birds are named after Anne d’Essling, the wife of the Duke of Rivoli. She never likely saw one. The French naturalist René Primevère Lesson gave the name to the bird after observing the species in California, presumably to sponsor favor with the Italian family.

   Anna’s Hummingbirds are common along the western coast of North America from northern Baja to southern Canada and many are permanent residents within this range. Their distribution explains why I have so many that visit my bird feeders year-round. Eight million Anna’s Hummingbirds are estimated to live in the western United States, and their numbers represent a substantial increase over the early 1970s. As temperatures warm, the territory for Anna’s Hummingbirds has expanded into the mountains of California, allowing their numbers to increase. Males are distinguished by a reddish-pink throat and reddish crown, an iridescent bronze-green back, pale grey belly, green flanks, and a slightly forked tail.

   
    
   
   Allen’s and Rufous Hummingbirds

   Photo Credit – Hummingbird Central

    

6. Allen’s Hummingbirds – small, compact, aggressive, territorial birds, and relatively rare. They migrate north beginning as early as December, and occupy a narrow strip of coastal forest, meadows, and gardens from Santa Barbara to southern Oregon. Their journey back to central Mexico takes place inland from June to August, although the birds that live around Los Angeles are often year-round residents. The species name celebrates Charles Andrew Allen, an American collector and taxidermist who identified the bird in 1879 in Nicasio, California. The species population has fallen by around 80 percent since 1968 to around 1.5 million. They are hard to distinguish from Rufous Hummingbirds. Males are identified from their green back and forehead, rust-colored flanks, rump, and tail, and iridescent orange-red throat. Females and immature adults are virtually identical in appearance to their equivalent Rufous Hummingbirds.

 

7. Rufous Hummingbirds – small, aggressive birds that pass through California (February to April and July to early October) on their nearly 4000-mile journey from Mexico, to breed north of California, as far north as Alaska, and then return home for winter. The population has declined significantly during the past 50 years but is large enough that these migrants remain familiar across California. Males are distinguished by their copper-orange back (although some are partially green, confusing their identity with Allen’s Hummingbirds). Their throat is an iridescent reddish-orange; they have a white breast and a white patch behind their eyes. 

And finally:

Which are the smallest hummingbirds? The Bee Hummingbird, the smallest bird in the world, is found only in Cuba. It is two and a quarter inches long and weighs less than a dime.

Which are the largest hummingbirds? The Giant Hummingbird is nine inches in length and is found throughout the Andes on both the east and west sides.  

Western Bluebirds Male & Female

Photo Credit – National Geographic

 

The number of Western Bluebirds fluttering and dropping to the ground in search of insects appears to have dramatically increased this fall around the golf course I use here in northern California. What is going on, I ask?

First, an introduction to Bluebirds. There are three species in North America: the Eastern, the Mountain, and the Western; some are resident and some migrate. The northern populations head south for winter. The Eastern is the most common and is found east of the Rockies; the Mountain Bluebird lives high in the Rockies, as far north as Alaska and the Yukon and east into Oklahoma, Kansas, and Nebraska. The Western Bluebird is restricted to the Pacific Northwest and down to the southern Rocky Mountains and Mexico. Western Bluebirds in the south tend to be year-round residents. All three species are members of the thrush family. 

 

Mountain Bluebird           Western Bluebird            Eastern Bluebird
Bluebird Range Map

Photo Credit – Avian Report

 

The Western Bluebird is the dominant species that forages across my Bay Area golf course. Their plumage is a brilliant royal blue across their top half, they have a rusty brown-red neck and upper breast, and their lower breast is gray. The plumage on the female is duller, and both genders are slightly smaller than an American Robin. They forage by sitting and waiting on low-to-the-ground perches, inspecting beneath them for insects, and then swoop down to catch their prey. Nesting takes place in tree cavities and artificial nest boxes, but they also have to compete with other cavity-nesters such as starlings, certain swallows, and wrens for this right to occupy a nesting site. Their breeding habitat includes open woodlands, ranch environments, and streamside groves, but the winter habitat expands to include oak and riparian woodland, coastal chaparral, and pasture fields. Their summer diet is mainly insects, but in winter its food expands to include berries such as grapes, mistletoe, and poison oak.

 

Western Bluebird Nesting

Photo Credit – Pacific Bird

 

Philopatry is the tendency of creatures to remain or habitually return to where they were born. Natal refers to the bird’s birthplace. It appears that mother Bluebirds can affect the everyday behavior of their male chicks while their offspring are still in the egg. They allocate different levels of testosterone and related hormones into the eggs, dependent on the competitiveness of the environment in which they have lived. If there is little competition for breeding and foraging, stay-at-home sons are born. When the reverse exists, more hormones are added, and the male chicks become more aggressive and more likely to disperse away from home.

  

Western Bluebird Diet of Berries

Photo Credit – Las Pilitis Nursery

 

The life span of a Bluebird is around four years, and its clutch size is around 2 to 8 eggs, a situation that appears to encourage growth in population. Where I play golf, there are plenty of oak trees and open “pastures”, and I rarely see starlings who might compete with them. There are plenty of Acorn Woodpeckers to create new nesting sites. Maybe this is what is going on. Additionally, the numbers may be influenced by the arrival of migrating birds from the north during the fall.    

The overall population of the Western Bluebird has held steady during recent years and the species is of “low concern” from a conservation perspective. The expansion of grazing land, the removal of dead trees, predation from cats and rodents, and the effect of non-native plants are the primary risks to their numbers. 

During my early days of bird-watching in Europe, Bluebirds were not a species I saw. The closest to these species was listening to Vera Lynn sing There’ll Be Blue Birds over the White Cliffs of Dover.  Written by two Americans in 1941, it appears that neither the composer nor the writer were aware that bluebirds did not live in Britain. However, the song became, and still is, a British favorite.

 

Bluebirds over the White Cliffs of Dover

Photo Credit- Rooftop Post

Male Black-throated Gray Warbler

(Photo Credit eBird)

 

During May this year, the Black-throated Gray Warbler made its way onto my birding “life list” as a result of a visit to Yosemite Valley. Not that these birds are rare in California ,but I had never seen one since resuming birding to escape the lock-ups imposed by the COVID pandemic. The species usually occupies coniferous and mixed forests, especially stands of pinyon pine, juniper, and oak. These warblers are short to medium-distance migrants. They breed west of the Rockies, from British Columbia to New Mexico, and winter in lowland dry forests, dense scrubland, and pine oak woods in Mexico, and the southwestern United States. Nesting occurs from late May to July, and the fall migration begins in mid-August. A few sightings of Black-throated Gray Warblers have been recorded in eastern North America but these are very rare. Migrants follow the western mountain ranges and the Pacific coastline, and a few occasionally pass through the Bay Area, close to my home. The ones in Yosemite seemed to be foraging for insects, and were seen close to Mirror Lake. 

 

 

A “not-so-good” image from Yosemite

(Photo credit: the Author)

 

Black-throated Gray Warblers have a bold and distinctive pattern of black-and-white on their crowns, around their eyes and on their throat, and a gray back that gives them their name. Also, there is a splash of yellow between the eyes and the bill. The female has a more dingy facial plumage, and adults are about five inches (13 cm) in length. The species is not considered threatened by human activities, and seems to have extended its breeding range due to a warming climate. It is classed as “Least Concern” from a conservation perspective.

 

 

Orange: breeding; yellow: migration; Blue: nonbreeding

Black-throated Gray Warbler Range Map

(Photo Credit: Cornell Lab. of Ornithology)

 

It was satisfying for me to be able to distinguish these birds from the more ubiquitous avian species that occupy Yosemite Valley, such as Steller’s Jays, American Robins, and Dark-eyed Juncos.

 

Steller’s Jay

(Photo Credit: Author)

 

American Robin

(Photo Credit: Wikipedia)

 

Dark-eyed Junco

(Photo Credit: Unknown)

 

I should mention that the family of warblers is one of the more difficult groups from which to distinguish individual species. There are so many varieties, they are small birds, they often are obscured by trees and scrub, you usually need to look upwards to spot them, their coloring can act as camouflage in their surroundings, they forage silently, and many display similarly colored plumage. 53 species of warbler are found in North America, and a total of 111 species are identified in the New World. Some do not look “warbler-like” such as the Water Thrush and Yellow-breasted Chat. Virtually all are in the family of Parulidae, and are found only in the New World. Curiously, warbler species in the eastern half of the United States were generally named after places, whereas in the West, they are named in recognition of their plumage or using the name of a person, typically an ornithologist. Identification methods include considering plumage, voice, habitat preference, and behavior when foraging.

Birds known as warblers elsewhere in the world are unrelated to New World warblers, and have been given the “warbler” name because of their “warbling” sound. Thus, birds such as the Willow Warbler, Garden Warbler, Whitethroat, Wood Warbler, and Reed Warbler that I recorded during my youth in England, have no relationship to the Black-throated Gray Warblers that I saw in the Yosemite Valley. Even the Olivaceous Warbler that I recently encountered in Israel has no relationship with the Yellow-rumped, Townsend’s, and Wilson’s Warblers that occasionally visit my California backyard.

 

 

Yellow-rumped Warbler

(Photo Credit: Cornell Lab. of Ornithology)

 

Orange-crowned Warbler

(Photo Credit: eBird)

 

Wilson’s Warbler

(Photo Credit: eBird)

Mute Swan
Photo Credit: Wikipedia

I was surprised recently to see two pairs of Mute Swans feeding on grass and submerged vegetation at Schollenberger Park, Petaluma, CA. They appeared to be partners and presumably were preparing to breed in March or April. As we passed them with two small dogs one of them, I assume the male, hissed loudly, straightened its neck, and moved in the direction of our pets. The next step, if we had not moved our dogs to one side, was that the bird would flap its wings and physically attack. These birds maybe graceful and beautiful, but their aggressive behavior is out of line with their appearance. As well as chasing pets and children, they physically injure and will sometimes kill other birds, such as waterfowl, and when nesting they are known to attack canoeists, kayakers, and boaters on jet skis.

Swans are a non-native species to the United States and were introduced in the mid-1800s and early 1900s to adorn ornamental lakes, ponds, and city parks. Some went native and escaped to the wild, such as the ancestors of the four we discovered in Petaluma. Their preferred habitat is shallow coastal and fresh water such as estuaries, bays, waterways, streams, ponds, and lakes. Mute Swans are now distributed across North America, and their most significant populations are on the North Atlantic coast, across the Midwestern states, and into parts of the Northwest. There are smaller, localized populations in Canada and throughout the United States. These birds will migrate small distances, but generally do not wander far.

 

Mute Swan Range Map
Red – breeding habitat/resident; Blue – migration/winter area
Photo Credit: Wildfowl Photography

They are large birds, weighing up to 30 pounds (14 km), and are around five feet (150 cm) in length. The body of the adult is solid white. The distinguishing feature from other swan species is their orange bill, with its fleshy, black knob at the base of the upper bill. As described in my novel She Wore a Yellow Dress, my first experience with these birds was in England in the 1950s, when a pair would breed annually in a pond near my farm, and I would frequently visit their nest. I would dare myself to get as close as possible to the birds before the flapping and hissing of the male swan frightened me away. Today there are an estimated 7,000 to 16,000 breeding pairs in the UK. The species is native to much of Euro-Siberia where there are an approximate 500,000 birds, of which 350,000 are in Russia. They winter as far south as North Africa, the Near East, and northwest India and Korea. Mute Swans are not endangered and efforts to control their numbers are underway in some parts of their non-native territories.

They are not the only swan species I can see here in California.

The most common species in North America is the Tundra Swan that usually makes its appearance in California from November to mid-March. They are North America’s most numerous swans, with a global population of around 280,000. They breed in the Canadian Arctic and coastal Alaska, on lakes, ponds, and pools that are near river deltas, and migrate to the Pacific Northwest, inland across to the Great Lakes, and as far as the coastal mid-Atlantic. The species is identified by its yellow patch at the base of its black bill. Sometimes it is referred to as the “Whistling Swan” because of the sound it makes with its wings in flight.

 

Tundra Swan
Photo Credit: Wikipedia

 

Tundra swans are also found in the UK and across northern Siberia to Japan. The British call it the Bewick’s Swan, the name that it was given in 1830 to recognize the work of the engraver Thomas Bewick, who specialized in illustrations of birds and animals. My sightings of this species have all been in California.

  

Tundra Swan Range Map
Orange – breeding; Yellow – migration; Blue – nonbreeding
Photo Credit: Wikipedia

Next there is the Trumpeter Swan, the one species that is native to North America, but rarely seen in California. Trumpeter Swans breed in northwestern Canada and Alaska and migrate to the Pacific Northwest. They can also be seen around the Great Lakes, and some migrate to the central interior of the United States. They are the only swans you are likely to see foraging in open fields. The bird is entirely white except for its black bill, legs, and feet. It has been spotted a couple of times in the UK, but I am still waiting to see my first one on either continent.

 

 

Trumpeter Swan
Photo Credit: All about Birds, The Cornell Lab

 

 

Trumpeter Swan Range Map
Purple- all seasons; pink – breeding; blue – winter (all regarded as uncommon)
Photo Credit: National Audubon Society

Finally there is the Whooper Swan, a species that is native to Eurasia, and a very rare vagrant to North America. A few birds from Siberia winter in small numbers in the Aleutian Islands, Alaska, but otherwise it is extremely rare. It can be identified by its fairly long, straight neck, black bill with a large triangular yellow patch, and a short tail. It is a species I have seen in the past. Back in the 1960s I saw the occasional Whooper Swan pass through Spurn Point in Yorkshire. It remains a winter migrant from Iceland to Britain, and about 16,000 birds appear annually. 

 

Whooper Swan
Photo Credit: e-Bird

 

Whooper Swan Range Map
Orange – breeding; Blue – non-breeding
Photo Credit: Birds of the World

And as a postscript, who could prepare an article on swans and overlook the Australian Black Swan? This species is native to the south-east and south-west regions of Australia and is the official emblem of Western Australia. For Europeans, it is a bird that in history could never exist. It fell into the same category as “flying pigs”. Now, most fortunately, Black Swans have become a highly popular ornamental water bird in countries such as Japan, China, the UK, the United States, and New Zealand. The last time I saw this species was on an ornamental pond outside a hotel on the island of Kauai. Enjoy your swan watching.

 

Photo Credit: e-Bird

Sandhill Cranes

During early October this year, I visited the Cosumnes River Preserve, south of Sacramento, to glimpse flocks of Sandhill Cranes flying high in the sky, having just arrived to winter in their thousands among the fields, marshes, and wetlands of the Central Valley of California. They are an amazing sight. Often you hear their loud trilled calls long before you spot them wheeling above you, searching for suitable feeding and resting grounds. They are known for their incredible eyesight. As predominantly plant-eating herbivores, they choose territory that provides them with abundant food, a temperate climate, and an acceptable living environment. Sandhill Cranes roost at night in shallow wetlands and feed during the day on grain fields. They are social birds that often forage in large flocks.

The Cosumnes River Preserve was established amidst farmland in 1987, and its flood plain has become a haven for tens of thousands of migratory waterfowl, songbirds, and raptors, as well as numerous Sandhill Cranes. There are of course other locations in California to catch sight of these birds, including Woodbridge Ecological Reserve near Lodi, Staten Island near Stockton, Pixley National Wildlife Reserve near Bakersfield, Yolo Bypass Wildlife Area near Davis, Soda Lake in San Luis Obispo County, and the Merced National Wildlife Refuge.

 

Cosumnes River Preserve in the Evening Light of Fall 2022

Sandhill Cranes are magnificent birds, up to five feet tall (1.5 meters), and with a wingspan reaching seven feet (2 meters). Their plumage is gray, augmented with a crimson red forehead, white cheeks, and a long, dark, pointed bill. They are among the oldest species on our planet and are famous for their distinct calls and complex “courtship” dances. The latter include circling each other, pumping their heads, stretching their wings, and leaping in the air. They are one of two crane species native to North America, the other being the very rare Whooping Crane. 

Two subspecies dominate California, the Lesser Sandhill Crane and the Greater Sandhill Crane. Elsewhere in North America, there are three local subspecies that do not migrate, known as the Florida, Mississippi, and Cuban Sandhill Cranes, and there is one subspecies called the Canadian Sandhill Crane that is difficult to distinguish from its related Greater Sandhill Crane. Subspecies are classifications of birds that can breed with other related subspecies, but typically do not do so. The two California cranes are identical in body shape, plumage, and color, but the Greater Sandhill Crane is up to five feet tall (1.5 meters) and the Lesser Sandhill Crane only four feet (1.2 meters). The smaller variety is the most common in California. 

 

Lesser and Greater Sandhill Cranes

 

Publication of this article during the Thanksgiving month of November is appropriate because of the origins of the word “cranberry”. Cranberries are a feature of the United States Thanksgiving table and interestingly are named after Sandhill Cranes. Pilgrims and early settlers in the United States thought the cranberry fruit blossom, with its pink-white petals that curve back over the vine runner, resembled the long, slender neck, white head, and red forehead of a Sandhill Crane, and therefore called them crane-berries. Over the years the name has been shortened to cranberries. 

“Sandhill” refers to the Nebraska Sandhills near the Platte River, a broad, shallow, meandering stream with many islands, where more than half a million cranes  stop to rest during the spring migration.

 

Cranberry Flowers

 

Head of a Sandhill Crane

I have visited the Consumnes River Preserve several times in the past to assist groups of third graders from Sacramento’s Leonardo da Vinci K thru 8 School who participate in an annual “wild birds” outing. This visit, however, was motivated by an experience near my home in Marin County when, at about 9.00 am on September 26^th 2022, I observed a pair of large birds flying eastward over the Bon Air Shopping Center near the Corte Madera Creek, seemingly preparing to fly across the San Pablo Bay. They made no noise and were flying below the remnants of an early morning fog that had allowed intermittent blue sky to push through its cover. I could see their long, straight, slender necks fully extended in front of them, they were flapping broad serrated wings in slow, regular wingbeats, their legs trailed beyond the end of their tail, and they appeared uniformly gray. Without binoculars, they were too far away for me to see their red crown but they had the profile of Sandhill Cranes. I doubt they were geese, including the Greater White-fronted Geese and Snow Geese that arrive in California around this time, because of the long legs that trailed behind them. Definitely they were not pelicans, blue herons, shorebirds, or swans, and they were too light-colored to be White-faced Ibises that occasionally visit California.

 

Sandhill Cranes in flight

 

White-faced Ibis

 

Greater White-fronted Geese

 

Snow Geese

Many Sandhill Cranes use the Pacific Flyway to migrate each year, which is one of four Avian Flyways that exist in North America. Lesser Sandhill Cranes typically use this route from Siberia, Alaska, and Canada, whereas the Greater Sandhill Cranes usually breed much closer to California, in states like Oregon, Nevada, Washington, and British Columbia, and around 250 pairs are estimated to currently breed in California’s high mountain meadows and high desert. Only about 5,000 to 6,000 of the Greater subspecies winter in California, whereas the total number of Sandhill Cranes in California is projected at around 250,000, with another 40,000 wintering in southern Arizona. Population estimates for all of North America are difficult to find, but it is likely that the total number is close to one and a quarter million. Sandhill Cranes that migrate along the Atlantic and Mississippi Flyways usually winter in Florida, Louisiana, Georgia, Alabama, and Southeast Tennessee, and are generally of the Greater variety. Those that follow the Central Flyway reach Mexico, New Mexico, and Texas for winter.  

 

Sandhill Cranes Range Map: RED-Breeding Common;  PINK- Breeding Uncommon;  BLUE-Winter;  GRAY-Migration

 

 

Sandhill Cranes have occasionally reached Europe but are only rare vagrants. During my days in England as a birder, during the 1960s, these birds were never recorded, and the first British sighting of a Sandhill Crane was on Fair Isle during April 1981, the southernmost Shetland island in Scotland, and the second sighting, 10 years later, was on the nearby Shetland Mainland. However, there is an Old World species of crane known as the Eurasian or Common Crane that is found in northern Europe and across the Palearctic into Siberia. It is a long distance migrant that winters in North Africa. Several centuries ago the Common Crane inhabited the UK, but became extinct during the 1700s.  Efforts are now underway to reintroduce the species into parts of England that provide suitable habitat. Other species I successfully saw during the 1960s and 1970s are mentioned in my novel She Wore a Yellow Dress.

 

Eurasian or Common Crane

I still have to record my first sighting of a Whooping Crane in the United States. It is one of the rarest North American birds and almost became extinct in the 1940s because of unregulated hunting and habitat loss. An estimated 21 was all that were left by 1941. Today, there are around 1000 birds, including those reintroduced after captive breeding. The majority nest in central Canada and winter in Texas, although a few breed in Wisconsin and winter in Florida. 

 

Whooping Cranes

The opposite is true for Sandhill Cranes. This species is currently not threatened and its population in parts of the United States has apparently increased by an annual rate of five percent since the mid-1960s, due to wetland restorations and abundant food. It remains illegal in many states to hunt Sandhill Cranes, and those states that do allow the sport (from Saskatchewan down to Texas), usually impose either a very short season or strict quota limits. The meat of Sandhill Cranes is believed by some to be the best among migratory birds, and is sometimes referred to as “The Ribeye in the Sky”. 

Unfortunately, by 2080, climate change may rob this species of over 50 percent of its winter habitat, with the likelihood that a significant reduction in its population will occur. Those of you worried about the impact of global warming may wish to add this possible outcome to your arguments for change.