The golf course is home to bigger birds than turkeys......
I had never seen sandhill cranes before, nor had I ever seen such big birds, wild as nature intended....
I had thought this was a family group -- parents with three youngsters. Two of the birds were a more solid brown. One of the brown ones was always in front, and the other in the middle, as they moved from one place to another.
Then I went to this page and read about sandhill cranes. It says that a white cheek patch indicates an adult. It also says that the birds are gray, but they like to preen iron-rich mud into their feathers, which is where the rusty brown color comes from.
These birds all seem to have white cheek patches. I don't know what their relationship to each other may be!
Like the turkeys, the cranes were very alert and wary.
You can see how it benefits them to live in a group. Someone is looking in every direction.....
Cool that we got to see this, too! (We were careful to keep our distance and not disturb them. They didn't fly because we were bothering them.)
In addition to this group, we saw two other cranes. I'm told that in the fall there will be many more.
I am so glad that there is room for cranes to live within a half an hour of Ann Arbor!
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