A cloud of cranes in the SLV

The setting never gets old. Winter is still going strong, but it bends toward spring. The stage sets in the quiet depths of the San Luis Valley, with snow-covered Blanca Peak standing sentinel on its east side. 

If the sandhill cranes have returned, they won’t stay silent long into the morning. In January a few cranes mingled with the Canadian geese around the Maxwell National Wildlife Refuge south of Raton in northern New Mexico. They pranced in barnyards and occasionally flew on a crisp winter morning. In April I would see a few small flocks of sandhill cranes above the Platte River near Kearney Nebraska. I had to watch them and listen to their chuckles till they disappeared in the trees. 

I have come to love the experience of the Rocky Mountain flock. An estimated 95 percent of all Rocky Mountain sandhill cranes pass through the valley in October and March on their seasonal migrations. Set your alarm – they will swarm the valley as spring approaches. Early on a March Saturday, a few small flocks hit the air. 

But the best place to see the sandhill cranes remains deeper in the valley, at the Monte Vista National Wildlife Refuge, south of its namesake town.

Monte Vista holds a festival in the second weekend of March. I always find it helpful to visit a week before or after the festival, since crowds of humans join the crowds of cranes. 

Before heading north to their nesting grounds, the cranes fuel up on the barley and other grains grown in the SLV. The refuge has a single 3-mile loop road, one short trail and numerous vantage points for crane watching – canals, ponds, and plains covered in the vegetation that draws the birds to stay. 

Eagle and nest

Cranes are not the only birds occupying Monte Vista in late winter. Near the loop’s end, a bald eagle’s nest stands in one of the few trees. On this morning, half of the eagle couple watched light traffic on the auto road. 

The eagle already seemed tired of the chuckling cranes despite their low numbers.  Both species return every year, with eagles mating for life and rebuilding the same nests. 

If the eagles weren’t tired of cranes, they soon would be.A viewpoint on the county road provided the best panorama of the visiting cranes. The flocks grew larger and larger, until the sandhill cranes rose above the valley in a mass ascension. 

Hundreds, maybe thousands of chuckling birds took to the sharp blue skies. The eagles stayed put. A second eagle, possibly the mate of the one perched next to the nest, sat near a pond on the refuge’s end. It didn’t budge when a smaller group of cranes coasted above its head. 

I have seen them up close. Watching the giant flock from greater distance felt proper this year. I have seen other bird species rise en masse, but the crane ascension is something different. It was not done defensively; they seemed to make a group decision to migrate. 

There’s probably a few stragglers or late arrivals still in the SLV. Next year, those cranes or their descendants will be there again.

Crane trio

An eagle watching the cranes