Cranes in the rain: Wandering to Jasper-Pulaski FWA to watch

MEDARYVILLE, Ind.–Six wild turkeys feeding in a field were the first wildlife John Vukmirovich and I noted Monday meandering toward Jasper-Pulaski Fish and Wildlife Area.

I picked up Vukmirovich at the Metra Electric in University Park, then we roamed across the state line to view thousands of sandhill cranes at J-P.

Sandhills have become the prime signifier of seasonal change around Chicago.

We’re fortunate to have J-P nearby, southeast of Valparaiso, Ind. Cranes–sandhills and an occasional whooping crane–begin arriving there en masse in October, building to a peak in late November or early December.

For years, I’ve recommended a Thanksgiving drive to J-P to watch them go out (after dawn) or fly in (before sunset). This year, a Christmas drive might be in order.

I enjoy time with Vukmirovich as much for the talk about literature as the wilds. (He doesn’t go blank when I mention William Faulkner’s “The Bear,’’ but quotes things I don’t remember.)

He was first to spot sandhills in a cornfield: 11 scattered in it and along the edges. Then came a cornfield with two more oddly standing alone. Then a field with 300 packed in back. Enough that a guy in a farm pickup pulled off to watch.

It’s more fulfilling to find sandhills in the wild, not just viewing them from the tower at J-P.

As we neared the site, three does raced through a CRP field; 12 turkeys fed in a field; and 10 sandhills flew over low.

Enough worrying about cranes in the rain. They were flying.

Already at 3:15 (4:15 Eastern, the site is on the line for time zone), as I turned toward the tower, I counted 16 groups of sandhills gliding the stiff south wind.

Thousands of cranes were already on ground far in back, far enough that it was tough to see them, even with binoculars. There were 26 deer in front. Later I counted four more, including a big buck nosing a doe.

Originally, Vukmirovich and I were the only ones on the tower (Goose Pasture Viewing Area) in the rain, then two couples from near Warsaw, Ind. joined us and I shared my binoculars.

I busted up laughing when one said she could hear the cranes “chirping.’’ Vukmirovich and I have a long-running discourse on the call of sandhills. He favors “krooing,’’ I go for “croaking.’’

Young people from the Dunes Learning Center came as part of a project and one asked, “Did you see the whoopers?”

As much as we tried, we did not see any. As whoopers slowly come back, there are sporadic sightings of them mixed with the sandhills.

I chatted with a couple hunters (duck or deer ) who stopped by. They said one field south of Medaryville held 5,000. My estimate of the number of birds within view at J-P was 7,000, Vukmirovich, better at it than I am, thought 5,000. The site count the next day was around 11,000.

Good numbers should hold until ice-up comes. Weekly updates may be followed by clicking here.

On Monday, the sandhills stopped flying early in the gloom.

When I dropped Vukmirovich at the Metra, he left with a remark tying together two disparate things, “Primal reality” and the famous quote of by Victorian poet and the father of modern literary criticism, Matthew Arnold, “To see the object as in itself it really is.”

The thing is cranes are here and likely to stay until major winter weather pushes them.