Each day the Snow Geese "blast off" before the sun rises. They head out to other pools on the periphery of the refuge where they rest for a while and then head to feeding grounds. The sight is spectacular, you can't really comprehend the experience without hearing the geese as their excitement builds and then they take off in mass and you are surrounded by thousands of birds. I went into town after the second day and bought a digital sound recorder so that you can hear the sound. Later this week I'll try to put some of the sounds in another Field Notes.


Once the geese are gone the sand hill cranes have the main pool to themselves. They wake up a lot slower than the geese and are not active until the sun rises. They seemed to take little strolls in the pools to stretch their legs before the finally flew off for the fields that the refuge maintains for feeding the birds.


This is one of the secondary pools that the geese fly to after coming out of the main pool first thing in the morning. Wave upon wave of geese join the cranes that spend the night on the pool. Then there is another version of the blast off as the geese lift up and fly off to the feeding grounds. Every morning that I witnessed this a feeling of awe and joy washed over me. When we see a handful or flock of birds migrating south it's an event that we notice as part of the changing seasons. But when you are in the midst of thousands and thousands of birds that have journeyed across a significant part of the face of the earth you begin to comprehend that you are standing at a focal point of a phenomena of global scale, an epic story that is written across the face of the earth, year after year, for thousands of years.


At the end of the day the cranes would fly out of the feeding areas into the shallow pools where they feel safest during the night.  On the evenings when everything came together you could see birds flying and wading through the last brilliant colors of the day with the mountains in the background. On this particular evening a friend and I sat next to each other and just silently listened to the conversations of the cranes and watched the occasional flight of a late goose coming in as the light faded. I don't think there is any better way to describe this other than to say that it was magical. It is exactly moments like that when I feel most alive and filled with joy.

Charles St. Charles


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