Sand Hill Crane Up close and personal

This Sand Hill Crane or Grus Canadensis decided to pay me a visit earlier this summer.

Earlier this summer I was doing some wood working. I decided I was going to try and make a knee-board or hydroslide. If you are not sure what these are. It is a small board that you pull behind your boat. You sit on it on your knees, they are very fun. Yes I know you can buy them but I like to try and make things.

In order to make this thing, I needed several of my power tools which were neatly stacked on top of each other in a section of my garage. Whenever I do wood working, I do it in my driveway so I had to open my garage and gather all my tools and put them in the driveway.
I had gotten all of my tools out and was doing some measuring on the piece of wood I was about to cut and suddenly I had that strange feeling that someone was behind me. Every once in a while everyone gets that feeling, you know what I am talking about. You can sense that someone is close to you that wasn’t there a few moments ago. I happened to be sitting on my knees while I was measuring because the wood I was going to cut was laying on the ground. Following that feeling that someone had just walked up behind me, I decided to turn around and see who it was. As I started to turn my head I noticed it out of the corner of my eye a Large gray bird not five feet from me, It was a Sand Hill Crane and he decided to come up my driveway very quietly and give me a jolt. I didn’t expect to see a Sand Hill Crane Standing right there. He was close to me I could almost touch him or her I wasn’t sure.

He seemed to be very interested in what I was doing because he was just standing there watching me. At this point I started to wonder exactly what this large bird was up. I got up very slowly as not to startle him and Said ” I will be right back, I need to get my camera.” Of course The Sand Hill Crane Just stood there and looked at me.

Once I was out of sight, I ran to my camera and told my wife and son that they need to come and see this crazy Sand Hill Crane. He let me get very close and take this picture.

This Sand Hill Crane made several visits to me that summer and Eventually brought it’s whole family.

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