Quote:
Originally Posted by palmtreepathos
Three times this month I have seen sandhill cranes flying south here in cherokee county ga... I caught a pitifully small clip of them, This is where a killer videocam would be nice to zoom in on something... the trilling sound of the cranes even at this distance is so cool to hear but was drowned out by the road noise, I include a clip of their sounds, imagine a bunch of them doing it at one time...
Maybe someone with better vision than myself could count them?  There were 3 groups of a similar size over a few minutes time...
UnCut Video - Now Playing "sandhill cranes-"
Listen |
The numbers I counted were 82, 81, 81, 80, 83 over several attempts. It seems you could say 80 birds without exaggeration for the film clip.
I dont know their habits in that area but around here they start to "stage" in late september. They hang in a staging area until it gets very cold and begin to move south between begining of Nov and end of nov (weather dependent). Usually the exodus takes a couple weeks once they start moving out. If a snowstorm hits, they can (and have) all left within a few days.
Their habits here during staging are to move out of their staging area between dawn and around 10am. Then they come back to their area from around 2-3 hours before dark for the night. You might want to spend some time in the area your seeing these guys before dark to see if they are coming back for a night stop, or if they are moving through. As you know you can hear these guys for a long time so even if you cant see them, you might get an idea of what they are up to and better position yourself during free time to get some closer pics.
You also might want to search for a rare bird alert posting. Lots of times they will (at least around here) give information on viewing large numbers of birds moving through an area. Heres the georgia line:
GOS Rare Bird Alerts
BTW, there is a birding thread also that you might want to post your sightings in.
