It’s A Bird, It’s A Plane – No, It Is A Bird
Readers may recall from Monday’s post, Spa Queens, Mr. Science, and the Sandhill Cranes, that last week the Kansas City-based Mr. Science, accompanied by his wife, the currently spa-ensconced Hippie With Tiara, made the 450 mile pilgrimage to the Platte River in Nebraska (the left marker on the map) to observe the 90% of the world’s 500,000 or so Sandhill Cranes that assemble at that location annually en route to northern Canada and Siberia. Our intrepid birders then returned home to the K.C. suburbs (the middle marker), regrouped, and traveled 525 miles to DrHGuy’s neck of the woods in northern Illinois (the map marker on the right).
Readers may also recall from Society Note: More Heck Of A House Visitors, that yesterday, Mr. Science and the Prodigal hiked through the area adjacent to Heck Of A House.
Readers, upon completing this paragraph, will know that on yesterday’s walk, Mr. Science and the Prodigal heard something that sounded like “a loud rattling kar-r-r-r-o-o-o”1 and went a little something like this,
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which caused them to look directly overhead where they saw – yep, you guessed ‘er, Chester – a contingent from that other 10% of the those Sandhill Cranes2 – only 730 miles from the main group.3
Mr. Science-Watcher Alert
For the benefit of those hobbyists who monitor the migrations of Mr. Science and Hippie With Tiara, I have clarified that they do not anticipate herding the remainder of the Sandhill Crane species all the way to Siberia but will be returning to the Kansas City area at the end of this week.
_____________________- The Sam Wharram Sports Club [↩]
- Clearly, the cranes in this 10% are an elite group of nonconformists who eschew the herd mentality of the Platte River bunch. We are considering a Heck Of A House marketing campaign featuring a Sandhaill Crane talking up the advantages of the path less taken. If nothing else, I figure that our representative, given that the Sandhill Cranes are omnivorous, would make short work (and a tasty treat) of that insurance-sponsored lizard. [↩]
- Bonus Factoid: A grouping of cranes is known as a sedge of cranes or a siege of cranes [↩]
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