This years hatch. Only 1 lived and is almost as big as it's mother.
They love cracked corn but I try to keep them away from the house as they can be destructive.
For those not familiar with them these are sandhill cranes.
Yard visitors
Oh gosh! I love sand hill cranes! They'rea protected species...and noisy...but they're sooo pretty with their red topped heads! So excited you have them in your yard! :)
I love them too. We have 1 pair that stays around all the time and usually has some hatchlings.
Wonderful birds. You seem to be in rural area judging from the cranes and the cow in the background. Nice setting.
Yes Helen we are rural but used to be only house on our road and it was like heaven. We have 2 development across the road from us now but nobody bothers the birds and they all have been warned about letting their dogs run and get into our pasture with the cows so we have only had 1 incident re: a dog and it didn't belong to any of those residents. Can't afford to let a cow get taken down by any animal. Even the gators in our canal have never killed a cow. Cows go into canal everyday up to their necks in this hot weather. Canal is much smaller now but still about 18 feet wide and don't know how deep. When we it all went dry it grew back in grasses and my husb. won't let me spray anywhere because cows drink out of it but there is a spray that's harmless to cows and many of the ranchers use it here. I also water my gardens out of that canal which runs along the back of our property. It's about 350 yards and we pump it up into irrigation system. This summer we have had so many good rains I have only had to turn irrigation on twice. Wonderful.