Morning Visitors

When I visited Judy, I would drink my morning coffee in her pool room (or whatever is the proper term for the covered pool, spa, outdoor area attached to almost every house in Florida). Joining me would be this pair of sandhill cranes. They would fly in, making this amazing sound.

Sandhill Cranes have a variety of vocalizations, the most common of which is generally described as a repeated series of trumpeting “garoo-a-a-a” calls that can be heard for over a mile. One of the reasons for this remarkably loud and penetrating call is an unusual windpipe. In most birds the trachea passes directly from the throat to the lungs, but in Sandhills it is elongated by forming a single loop which fills a cavity in the sternum. It is not surprising that the louder and more harmonic Whooping Crane has a longer trachea with a double loop.

Sandhill cranes fly over our home in Indiana during migration and their call brings the whole family outdoors.