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No craning necessary to see slew of sandhills at Jasper- Pulaski FWA
MEDARYVILLE, Ind. — Six wild turkeys feeding in a field were the first wildlife John Vukmirovich and I noted Monday as we meandered 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 signifiers of seasonal change around Chicago. We’re fortunate to have J- P nearby, southeast of Valparaiso, Indiana. 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 about 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 standing alone. Then a field with 300 packed in back, enough that a guy in a farm pickup pulled off to watch.
It’s special 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 Conservation Reserve Program field, 12 turkeys fed in a field and 10 sandhills flew over low. Enough worrying about cranes in the rain. They were flying.
At 3: 15 p. m. ( 4: 15 p. m. Eastern because the site is on the line for the 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 the ground far in back — far enough that it was tough to see them, even with binoculars. There were 26 deer in front. I later counted four more, including a big buck nosing a doe.
Vukmirovich and I initially were the only ones on the tower ( Goose Pasture Viewing Area) in the rain. Then two couples from near Warsaw, Indiana, joined us. I shared my binoculars.
I busted up laughing when one woman said she could hear the cranes ‘‘ chirping.’’ Vukmirovich and I have a long- running discourse about the call of sandhills. He favors ‘‘ krooing’’; I go for ‘‘ croaking.’’
Young people from the Dunes Learning Center came as part of a project. One asked, ‘‘ Did you see the whoopers?’’
As much as we tried, we didn’t see any. As whoopers slowly come back, there are sporadic sightings of them mixed with the sandhills.
I chatted with a couple of hunters ( duck or deer) who stopped by. They said one field, south of Medaryville, held 5,000. My estimate of the number of birds in view at J- P was 7,000; Vukmirovich thought 5,000.
Good numbers should hold until ice- up comes. Weekly updates are available at in. gov/ dnr/ fishwild/ 3109. htm.
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 a famous quote by Victorian poet and 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.
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