Saturday, September 13, 2008

OMG, what I also saw!

Omg, I'm pretty sure I saw a whooping cane!! There's a reservoir just south of where the Mushroom Rocks are and as I drove past that lake on Friday I saw a really big bird that had the shape of a crane and was all white with black at the tips of the wings. It flew off from the shore, circled, and went back again. I got a really clear view of it in flight and from several angles. I had no idea what it was, so I just now typed its description into Google. First, I clicked on a site where other people were baffled by a bird of the same description. One of them suggested whooping crane, so I found a site for that and there it was!! So then I checked to see if that was even possible, and yes, it is!! They go through central Kansas during migration.

Wow, what a thrill. It was really graceful and beautiful.

28 comments:

Kelly McCullough said...

First. I always wanted to say that.

katiebird said...

Wow -- that's beautiful! What an exciting trip!

Mister and I saw a gigantic hawk sitting on the fence next to the track where we walk. And for the first time ever, neither of us had a camera.

It was watching the herd of geese that hangs out there. Do you think it was looking for dinner?

katiebird said...

(waving) Hi, Kelly!

AndiF said...

Very cool, Nancy. Herons are just gorgeous. They show up at the lake over at the camp pretty regularly and I love to watch them take off.

Morning all.

Kelly McCullough said...

Hi back KB, and hi Andi!

Up again, not still, and getting ready to return to bed after a bout with five a.m. insomnia. See everyone else sometime after ten (I hope).

Anonymous said...

Great feeling when you see wildlife like that. Amazing the variety of Mother Nature. All I've seen are the egrets and herrons we have down here, similar but smaller than cranes.
We have a Red Tail hawk that lives along the creek behind our house. I wish my digital camera had better zoom capacity lens for critters.
My area got a little less than an inch of rain and winds weren't that high. So Ike had little impact for us.
Hope Kimber has electricity back soon. Figure that is the least damage she got in Houston. Could be other issues too.

Morning to Andi and Kelly. Hey KatieB.
Hope somebody has a little sun on Sunday.

Nancy P said...

Morning, everybody. Those last two photos, btw, are not mine. My new camera hasn't arried yet.

Seeing that whooping crane is the first time I've ever seen a member of an endangered species in the wild. That part alone--seeing something so precious and rare--adds a lot to the thrill.

Larry Kollar said...

Morning folks!

Kelly, hope you get some sleep. Insomnia suxxx.

Blue cranes like to hang out at the in-laws' pond sometimes. Fascinating birds, but the in-laws like to chase them away because they eat too many fish.

Plenty of bird life on this planet… that's probably why there are so many bird brains running around.

Hokee, I'm making rolls. For real. They're going in the oven as soon as they finish rising.

GhostFolk.com said...

Nancy, wow!

You'll never guess what I saw Saturday. A cat. Okay, maybe you guessed. Oh, and $4.99 gasoline. One is likely rarer the other, but I'm not sure wish.

I need help. Anyone who has the time who already has a blog is invited (begged) to visit my now brand-new blog site:

http://ghostfolk.blogspot.com/

As usual, I have no idea what I am doing, and would love to add a list of links to your blogs (and this one) if someone might possibly tell me how????

Also, the cat I saw was really very cool, but I don't want to hijack too much more space on Nancy's blog to talk about it. I tell about it at the the post at my blog, which, btw, has almost nothing else on it. :-(

P.S. I am traveling throughout the South in October and have a list of my appearances up at my website.. if any of the locations are near anyone here.. I'd love to get a break from talking with total strangers and say hello to you. I promise I will NOT try to sell you a book.

Sally, if you're lurking, we named the cat who came to the ghost presentation after you. Because it was so pretty.

GhostFolk.com said...

P.S. Is there something I need to do to allow comments at my blog place?

Nancy P said...

Ghost!! Before I say anything else. . .

Look up at the top right of your blog. Click on "dashboard." When you get there look at the menu at the top and click on "settings." When you get there look for "comments" and click on that, and see what you can do with that. If you wander around "settings" you'll probably find all the controls you're looking for. But ask us if you don't!
Now to read about a cat.

Nancy P said...

Okay, that is VERY cool and charming about The Cat Who Came to Listen. My black cat is purring at this moment and trying to eat the corner of my computer. That's how close he wants to get to your story. :)

Anonymous said...

Beautiful bird. No wonder you're so excited about seeing it. I've never seen one. The most unusual thing I've seen in nature is when I first moved up to northeast Ohio and was living on the lake. One fall morning shortly after I moved in, I walked outside to go to work in the morning and my car, the trees, bushes, everything was covered with butterflies. It was like walking into another world. I didn't know what to think and found out when I got to work that it was part of the butterfly migration. Beautiful. Never saw it again after that. I feel very fortunate to have seen it that once.

Hi everyone. Have a great day.

GhostFolk.com said...

Nancy, it worked! YAY!! Thank you.

Nancy P said...

ghostblog

Nancy P said...

I finally managed ^^^to make a link inside a comment! This has taken me YEARS, people.

Nancy P said...

Maria, I switched you from website to blog on my front page.

Ghost, you're linked in my blog list now. Should I keep you in the website list, too, or is that inactive now?

Anon, what an amazing experience!

Far, I Want Rolls Now.

I heard a funny bird story while I was at the state fair. In Kansas, the quail population is declining, but the wild turkey population is growing. A state biologist told me that for a while word was going around that the reason quail were disappearing was that the wild turkeys were eating them.

:D

GhostFolk.com said...

Ghost, you're linked in my blog list now.>> Thank you! Should I keep you in the website list, too, or is that inactive now? Please do. Both sites are active and, until I get real smart, seperate.

Btw, my experience has been the people who drink Wild Turkey eat most of the quail.

What a lot of natural noise you have on your blog today, Nancy: whooping cranes, quail, and wild turkey! And just regular old turkeys like me, as well.

Nancy P said...

"the people who drink Wild Turkey eat most of the quail."

Snort.

Anonymous said...

Hey, Nancy, I was just checking out the front page and noticed you've been in operation for over a year. Did I miss the anniversary celebration?

Nancy P said...

Anonymous, I missed it, too! Thank you so much for finding that and pointing it out. We'll have a party, maybe on my birthday next week. (the 19th)

Speaking of birthdays, I'm thinking that as of October we might go to monthly celebrations instead of separate days. I'm all too likely to get distracted and let somebody's bday pass by, and I don't want to do that.

Maria Lima said...

I'd chime in with "good morning" but it's afternoon already. :)

Nancy, thanks for the heads up. Lovely bird photo!

I'm enjoying a VERY lazy Sunday, happy in the fact that all my friends in the Gulf Coast areas are okay.

Hope everyone's Sunday is great!

Anonymous said...

Kimber checked in on the WRW loop and she made it through the storm.
She mentioned branches and downed fences all over the yard so is probably busy with clean up.

maryb said...

Mornin .. oops, afternoon, all!

That's very cool Nancy - you are entitled to whoop it up. lolol. sorry. couldn't resist.

It rained buckets here this morning and I've just finished cleaning up the water in my basement. sigh. Thank you Ike. Now the sun is coming up and it's probably going to be sauna-like outside.

I went to see the new movie The Women last night - it was an interesting remake. It was not quite good (a couple of characters seemed mis-cast), but we still enjoyed it because it was exactly what we were looking for last night.

Anonymous said...

Yahoo, a double party with a birthday and an anniversary! Woot!

And speaking of weather. Hmmm, could it be? The local weather guy said we're to get the remnants of Ike here in NE Ohio this evening. Could it really get here that fast? I guess so. It's been really windy most of the day. Should be fun dodging garbage cans on the way to work in the morning if this keeps up.
Andif, did you get it yet? Time to batten down the hatches.

Larry Kollar said...

Kimber just posted on her blog, she's got power back.

Plenty of rolls Nancy, come grab some! I'm taking a few to work with me this week.

Hey Ghost, I'm looking at your list of appearances. Decatur & Atlanta are both somewhat of a drive. Daughter Dearest will be home the weekend you're in Decatur, so that's going to be difficult. Eh, keep your fingers crossed, maybe I'll get there. 'Course, you're invited to come & visit while you're in the area.

boran2 said...

Hi all.

Kelly, I yelled first one time on dkos just as a joke. All those serious bloggers came down on me quite hard for such a silly thing.

Now that it's stopped raining here for 5 minutes I will be able to get a few things done. Finally.

Cool photo, Nancy. That must have been some sight.

Kelly McCullough said...

Boran, yeah, I like Kos for a lot of things, but it definitely has a tendency to take itself too seriously on some things.