Crane Count Day

Saturday was the day of the annual Sandhill Crane Count. It is always an early morning as the cranes are most active (or so they say) first thing in the morning. We were up at 5am...all of us, Robby included...did I mention he didn't go to bed after he worked the late shift?...yikes...I'm not young enough to do that any more!!!
In any case, we left the house and were greeted at the first pond out the driveway to the left by 4 sandhills standing on the ice. It was still too dark and wasn't very conducive to photos...which was fine. As we drove around the north end of Long Lake, Brad spotted our first loon of the year!!! Again, no shot! We continued on and drove to our assigned site over off of Hwy 70...last year it was a beautiful day...today it was gray and raining lightly. Last year the pond and the small lake were all thawed...this year both were still frozen. We made the best of standing out in the rain, listening for crane calls...here are a few shots from the morning.

We didn't see any cranes while we were there, but here are a few I captured off our dock on Monday morning after the count...

Later we also saw this cool hawk! I have yet to figure out what kind of hawk it is!!!