The Sandhill Crane: Habitat, Life History, and Hunting

Raspy trumpets descending from the heavens broke the crisp silence and broke me out of my ice fishing trance. It’s easy to lose yourself while staring into the flashing circles and lines of a Vexilar screen, but the first sandhill crane calls of the year would snap anyone back into reality. I looked up through my copper-tinted glasses and counted nearly 200 cranes flying west over Blue Mesa Reservoir towards Montrose’s agricultural fields and milder temperatures. That’s more cranes than were left in Wisconsin in the 1930s.

Sandhill cranes (Antigone canadensis) are one of North America’s great conservation successes. This enormous bird species was extirpated from many states within its home range almost a century ago. Today, they can be found across the entire North American continent and into Siberia. Amazingly, in 2019, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service estimated their population to be 945,996 cranes. They’re the most abundant crane species in the world. Between 1966 and 2019, their populations have been increasing about four percent annually, according to the North American Breeding Bird Survey. Additionally, Partners in Flight estimates there are 560,000 breeding birds.