Cranes in Effect!
Today, after much too long an absence, Emma Dog and I went for a walk along the clear ditch by the Rio Grande Nature Center. It was one of those golden-velvet afternoons that make Fall my favorite season of the year.
Coming out of the Center proper, or up the bike path from the south, you cross a bridge to the levee bike path on the west side of the ditch. Perhaps a quarter mile north another footbridge crosses back to the east side, where a tree-shaded dirt trail runs. As you come off that bridge you’re looking off across the wide fields the Nature Center maintains as a wildfowl preserve.
Stopping to look out at them I saw, far off across them, suspicious looking pale-grey shapes. Looking through my indispensable Simmons monocular I confirmed they were, in fact, Sandhill cranes - first of the season that I’ve seen.
Always a treat to see them. I’m looking forward to hearing them, and looking up and seeing them fly south in their vees. If I’m lucky, I might be wakened some morning soon by their distinctive, piercing, bubbling cries. When I first moved into my house on Jupiter the wild geese would announce autumn by flying over, which always thrilled me. Then their flight paths shifted and I was bereft. But a couple years ago the cranes started going over. Which is at least as cool.
As we walked back the Canada geese, who are arriving back in big numbers (unlike cranes they never all leave ABQ), raised a colossal fuss off out of sight in the fields. I’m guessing coyotes were working the field. They do that.
On the way home I stopped off to buy dinner at Lowe’s across Fourth Street. In the produce section I heard a middle-aged guy cheerfully explaining to a lady who works there that he was just buying a pumpkin as a treat for his chickens - and only because they were out of watermelons.
Indeed do many things come to pass.
Next: When Great Sky Demons Attack and its terrifying sequel, Bring Me the Head of Mickey Mouse.