My Colorado
Waiting for Liftoff
By Sandi Bianchi
Dressed in winter clothing and huddled under wool blankets, we sit in the van with windows and doors open. Bitter cold dilutes the once-warm air inside. As the thermometer sinks to seven degrees, steam rolls off our lips in the pre-dawn March silence. We clutch our piping-hot mugs of coffee as if they're miniature furnaces. Sipping slowly, I ration the liquid to last until liftoff.
The sandhill cranes have returned to the San Luis Valley.
Birdwatchers all, we comb the pond with our scopes, looking for the oval-shaped blobs perched on stick-like legs in the freezing water. We imagine the cranes, like us, are shivering. We know they're there; we identified the pond the evening before as a “crane motel.”
Dawn illuminates the landscape and we spot hundreds of cranes standing like headstones in a cemetery. Quiet, or we'll send them into premature flight.
As they wake, they speak. First one, garoo-a; then another, garoo-a, garoo-a; then thousands of voices in a continuous din.
As the sun warms them, they stretch their stiff, sleepy bodies, waiting for the voice of some unidentifiable herald within to shout, “Now!”
When the command comes, they fly. Flapping their massive wings, they climb into the cold, dry air. Wide-eyed with the thrill we've anticipated, we follow the gray cloud as it rises above the ridgeline and gracefully moves to nearby grain-laden fields where the cranes will spend their day feasting, courting and socializing.
This sandhill crane version of Spring Break starts in late February, as 20,000 birds journey from New Mexico to their breeding grounds in Idaho . The San Luis Valley, filled with springs, seeps and the meandering Rio Grande River, hosts the cranes for a month.
And just as the cranes return annually, so do birdwatchers to marvel in the spectacle of their flight.
Do you have a special memory or humorous story about living in Colorado? EnCompas is looking for original essays that capture the uniqueness of our state. Payment is $60 upon publication. Entries must be typed, double-spaced and 200–300 words. Please include a daytime phone number. Entries will not be returned. Mail to: EnCompass, Attn: My Colorado, 4100 E. Arkansas Ave., Denver, CO 80222, or email: cpatrick@colorado.aaa.com. A response to a submission may take six to eight weeks. |
