The coldest I have ever been was on a trip to Muleshoe, Texas, to see sandhill cranes.
I drove to the Muleshoe National Wildlife Refuge and a helpful guide led our group to a spot overlooking a small, shallow lake. It was about eight in the morning and the temperature was a frigid four degrees Fahrenheit.
Four measly degrees. But surprisingly, the shallow, open water on the lake was unfrozen and the sandhill cranes – big birds with long legs – ran a bit and launched themselves into flight. There must have been more than a thousand birds.
It warmed me up a bit just to see such a spectacle, truly one of nature’s natural wonders.
We returned that evening to see the cranes fly back to their lake residence and they sailed down gracefully, landing feet first with hardly a splash.
We were told the cranes flew out each morning to feed on nearby farm fields, dining on leftover grains. They overwinter in Muleshoe and then head up to Canada in the spring. The record number of cranes at the refuge was in 1981, when some 250,000 birds showed up.
The 6,440-acre refuge is the oldest national wildlife refuge in Texas and was established in 1935.
If you want to see the maximum number of these handsome white birds with a red spot on their foreheads, visit in December or January. In addition to the sandhill cranes, you can spot wood warblers, meadowlarks, raptors, and burrowing owls. Plus rabbits, coyotes, ferrets and badgers.
By the way, honking geese flying in a V formation is a quintessential image of migration. But many migrating birds don’t have a social structure and prefer to migrate as individuals. Cranes and geese are two types of birds that fly north in a flock.
The older and more experienced birds usually decide both when and where to migrate and the younger birds just follow along.
If you ever go to Muleshoe to see the sandhill cranes, be prepared to see a marvelous display of avian activity. And be darned sure to bundle up!
Sunset over a lake. Image sourced from MetroCreative
