On Friday I drove to Dyckesville, a small lakefront community northeast of Green Bay. There’s a bar, a church, an ice cream stand, and a bowling alley. It is also where my mom lives. There is no best way to get from La Crosse to Dyckesville. Depending on my mood, I drive one of three routes. All three routes go through Wisconsin’s pine barrens. No one route is better than the others.
This time I took Highway 21. About halfway through the barrens, I saw a dozen sandhill cranes feeding in a field alongside the road. There is nothing unusual about seeing cranes in these numbers at this time of the year. Paired sandhills keep to themselves during the summer, but then congregate in preparation for the fall migration.
There was also a white blob in the field. At first, I thought it was a piece of abandoned farm equipment. Then it moved, and I assumed it was an unusually small, very white cow. Finally, as I turned my full attention back to the road, the animal that I thought was a grazing cow raised its head and transformed into something tall and sleek. For several seconds, I didn’t know what it was that I had just seen.
The body shape was similar to that of an egret, but it was bigger than any egret. It was at least as tall as the sandhill cranes in the field, but the coloration was wrong. I did not think of it at the time, but in retrospect, the famous Sherlock Holmes quote fit the moment well; “When you have eliminated all which is impossible, then whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.” The truth was that I’d just seen a whooping crane.
My serious birding days are over, but that did not keep my heart from racing when I realized I’d just observed a bird that was once on the brink of extinction. I was stunned, in a bit of a shock, and not in a condition conducive to driving safely. I didn’t pull over, but I did consciously calm myself down. I forced my arms to stop tingling, and because the car was in cruise control, I was able to take my foot away from the accelerator. Other than the one time I saw a California gray whale breach, I don’t remember ever being as excited about seeing a wild animal. It might take a sighting of Sasquatch to top it.
I now regret not having turned the car around. By the time I’d calmed down, realized what I’d just seen, and stopped wondering whether I was the only person to have noticed the rare sight, I was already several miles down the road. This week’s blog has no photo, and that is intentional. The absence of a photograph represents the mistake I made in not going back for a better look (and a potential photo opportunity). I tried telling myself that there was magic in only getting a glimpse of an endangered species, but my logical mind isn’t buying it. I should have turned around.
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