Nature: Spectacular sandhill cranes still rule the roost in protected Indiana marshes

Nature: Spectacular sandhill cranes still rule the roost in protected Indiana marshes

At the dawn of European settlement, North America’s Midwest was a vastly different landscape. Today’s environment is thoroughly altered by the hand of man. Few people probably have a sense of the conditions that reigned even a century or two ago.

A case in point is the former Grand Kankakee Marsh of northern Indiana. When settlers first arrived in this region, the Kankakee River flowed 233 miles westward from its springy origins near modern-day South Bend. Its torturous circuit carved out hundreds of bends and oxbows, and a half million acres of wetlands and primeval forest buffered its banks.

The massive marsh was one of North America’s greatest wetlands. Only 70 miles to the east was the Great Black Swamp, which covered much of northwest Ohio. It sprawled over nearly a million acres. Driving the region today, one would have little clue that some of the richest wetlands in America occupied those lands.

By the mid-19th century, agriculturalists had set to work draining the Kankakee Marsh. By the early 20th century, their work was complete. The Kankakee River had been channelized into a 133-mile ditch straight as a plumb line. The wetlands were nearly gone, transformed to endless billiard table flat monocultures of beans, corn, and wheat.

While the loss of indigenous flora and fauna was staggering, worse than we will ever know, some creatures still haunt their ancestral milieu.

Foremost among the survivors is the Sandhill Crane. This is a spectacular bird four feet in height with a wingspan of nearly seven feet. A big one might weigh 12 pounds.

For millennia, Sandhill Cranes staged in late fall and early winter in the Kankakee marshes. Birds that bred locally were augmented by those that nested further north. While most of the local nesters have been eradicated, legions of others still congregate in the remaining bits of habitat.

The crane oasis is Jasper-Pulaski Fish and Wildlife Area in northwest Indiana. It’s only a 4.5-hour drive from Columbus. I visited in late November, near the cranes’ peak. About 30,000 birds were in the area.

At night that cranes roost in protected marshes within the wildlife area. At dawn, they fan out into corn stubble fields in the area, where they glean spilled grain. Woe to any mouse that shows itself. Sandhill Cranes are opportunistic omnivores that grab any edible morsel, plant or animal.

Thousands of cranes working the fields is a spectacle not soon forgotten. At one point, I was photographing a nearby flock when something put up several thousand birds about a mile away. Their irate bugles merged into a low roar, clearly audible from my distant post. The flock suggested a scudding storm cloud on the horizon.

Sandhill Cranes are highly social and in late afternoon, the foraging flocks converge on a massive meadow in the wildlife area called Goose Pasture. A large observation deck overlooks the site, making for easy viewing.

Waves of cranes, traveling in groups small and large, make their way to the pasture bugling all the while. The calls of cranes are earthy and primeval, a resonant woody rattling that harks to an earlier time. Interspersed are the bright sibilant whistles of juveniles. The youngsters remain with their parents for most of their first year.

Much dancing occurs among the thousands of vociferous congregants. Ornate displays are one way in which cranes communicate. The gamboling pair makes vertical leaps, spread their wings in ornate flourishes, and bow deeply to one another. Occasionally one will toss dirt clods or plant debris aloft. Sometimes dancers trigger reactions among their colleagues, and localized flash dances erupt.

Just after dusk, blastoffs commence with huge groups leaving en masse for the roosting marshes. The show ends with a bang. And a wall of sound never forgotten.

Mid-November to mid-December is peak time for cranes at Jasper-Pulaski. I highly recommend a visit. More details are at: https://www.in.gov/dnr/fish-and-wildlife/properties/jasper-pulaski-fwa/

Naturalist Jim McCormac writes a column for The Dispatch on the first, third and fifth Sundays of the month. He also writes about nature at www.jimmccormac.blogspot.com