More than 25,000 sandhill cranes now in Sulphur Springs Valley

Posted in: News Media

Jan 27, 2017

WILLCOX, Ariz. – The Arizona Game and Fish Department is estimating there are more than 25,000 sandhill cranes in the Sulphur Springs Valley in southeastern Arizona, with the largest concentration of 15,343 at Whitewater Draw Wildlife Area in McNeal.

The Willcox Playa area has 8,291 cranes, the Safford Valley/Duncan area 846, Bonita 775, and there are less than 100 at Crane Lake and elsewhere in the area. Game and Fish conducted its annual crane count in the valley Jan. 6.

Whitewater Draw usually has the largest number of cranes, but a lack of runoff into the draw from the Mule Mountains as well as dense grass growth there resulted in the cranes seeking alternate roosts elsewhere in 2016.

The bird watching community and others recently contributed more than $11,000 to helping maintain the draw, a natural drainage, as a wetland.  To contribute, go to: https://draw.azgfd.gov/WhitewaterDonation.

The cranes usually fly out as a group at dawn to feed, gleaning grain from farmers' fields. Most of the cranes follow this feeding pattern, but some linger in or near their roosts. They return from feeding between 11 a.m. and 4 p.m.

The cranes typically begin to arrive in mid-September to early October. They begin to leave approximately mid-February, sometimes departing all at once, but others may stay until the middle of March.

View the sandhill cranes at Whitewater Draw via the Arizona Game and Fish Department’s live Sandhill Crane Cam.

Satellite transmitters used to study sandhill crane ecology

Date:January 12, 2016

Source:New Mexico State University (NMSU)

This was not a typical day at the office for New Mexico State University biology doctoral student Matt Boggie. It was a bitterly cold and windy December morning at the Bernardo Waterfowl Management Area in central New Mexico. He sat quietly with binoculars in an irrigation canal, camouflaged behind vegetation near a mowed-down cornfield.

He waited for sandhill cranes to land in the perfect spot in the field.

He waited.

And he waited.

A team of about 14 people from NMSU, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, New Mexico Department of Game and Fish, Bosque del Apache Wildlife Refuge and others sat patiently in nearby vehicles waiting for the call.

The moment Boggie saw an adequate number of cranes in that perfect spot, he made the call.

In an instant, NMSU wildlife science graduate student Andrew Meyers triggered a detonator that deployed a large explosive-propelled net that captured about 16 cranes. During the next five minutes, several vehicles arrived and people ran toward the cranes. What occurred over the next 30 minutes was a quiet, well-organized, efficient, team-oriented and successful trapping event.

Read on ...

Rare bird adapts well to prosthetic leg

by Vikki Hopes - Abbotsford News

posted Jan 31, 2014 at 9:00 AM— updated Feb 1, 2014 at 2:13 PM

Bunker walks gracefully and confidently around his pen, one foot planted firmly in front of the other, his head held high.

It's only on closer inspection that one would question how he is able to maneuver so effortlessly.

The rare sandhill crane's right limb is supported by a long black plastic piece – a prosthetic device that replaces the portion of his leg that had to be amputated last year after he was wounded on a golf course.

Bunker has been recovering for almost a year, and it was only in December that a more permanent solution was found for his disability.

Now, Abbotsford veterinarian Dr. Ken Macquisten and Elizabeth Melnick of Elizabeth's Wildlife Center(in photo below) anticipate being able to eventually release the bird to his natural habitat.

"He is using the leg very well and seems to be comfortable. It is giving us some reason to be a tiny bit more optimistic that he might be the first bird to ever be returned to the wild with a prosthesis," Macquisten said.

Continued and video ...

Rare bird gets peg leg after losing limb in golf accident

A sandhill crane, a rare sight in the Lower Mainland, is standing up again after losing a leg in an accident at a Richmond, B.C., golf course.

Elizabeth Melnick, who runs a non-profit wildlife rehabilitation centre in Abbotsford, said the bird's leg was shattered in early March when it was struck by a stray golf ball.

'He's unusually tame for a wild bird.'—Dr. Ken MacQuisten

"The crane was brought in because he was hit by a golf ball and his lower leg was shattered, so the vet, Dr. Ken MacQuisten, tried to see if it would work possibly with surgery," she said.

"It just wasn't a go. So [MacQuisten] decided to amputate the lower leg and now he's getting a prosthesis put in."

MacQuisten said the leg was badly broken and the limb had died by the time the crane was captured.

"It took about five days to catch him and bring him into the veterinary hospital. So, we had to amputate the foot and now we've fitted him with a prosthesis so that he can balance and walk with it," MacQuisten said.

This juvenile sandhill crane is about the size of a great blue heron. (CBC)

MacQuisten fitted the bird with a temporary limb for now. He says a permanent prosthetic leg will be attached once the stump is fully healed.

According to the Reifel Bird Sanctuary in Delta, sandhill cranes typically migrate through the central prairies and winter in the southern U.S. states, and in B.C. some cranes pass through the central interior.

But a small number of sandhill cranes have been living in the Lower Mainland after a pair of captive-hatched birds were released in the area over 30 years ago. The tame birds never reproduced, but they did attract wild sandhill cranes to settle in the region.

In the 27 years Melnick has been running her shelter, she has never come across one before.

MacQuisten also said the crane was a rare subject to work with for other reasons.

"This is a very unusual patient," MacQuisten said. "He's unusual in the sense that there are very few sandhill cranes in the Lower Mainland, here, but he's unusually tame for a wild bird," MacQuisten said.

"He makes a great subject to see if we can do something to help him with the ultimate goal of sending him back out onto the golf course."

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/story/2013/03/24/bc-sandhill-crane-prosthetic-leg.html

Bird migration forecasts early winter

There’s a saying, “Birds never lie.”

If so, the best weather forecaster in the West, the migratory sandhill crane, is predicting an early winter with plenty of rain and snow.

Over the years, the timing of the migration of sandhill cranes south to the San Joaquin Valley has predicted winter weather, both wet and dry. Early migrations have meant big winters. Late migrations, the opposite.

“I think 2012 sets a record for earliest arrival,” said Gary Ivey, the International Crane Foundation’s Western Conversation Manager.

This fall’s verified migration started  August 25 when 10 sandhill cranes were sighted in northern San Joaquin County by a birdwatching group guided by Esther Milnes-Schmierer, a docent for the Department of Fish and Game. In past years, the giant sandhill cranes have first arrived in mid-September.

Read more:  http://blog.sfgate.com/ski/2012/09/13/bird-migration-forecasts-early-winter/