Subject: Lonely Sandhill Crane
Date: Mar 4 22:21:13 1998
From: MurrayH - MurrayH at aol.com


Just in case there's someone out there who doesn't want to go all the way to
Ridgefield for the year's list: in the fields near some dairy farms east of
Orting off of Route 162E on Orville Road (1.2 miles south of intersection
thereof--DeLorme p.63, T19N, R5E--), a lone bird was seen on either side of
the road in fields bordering the dairies. It was reported to The Bird Feeder
in Puyallup where Sally Hill passed on the message and yesterday, amid rain
and hail, my daughter Laurie, here from Anchorage, spotted it moving out from
behind some berry bushes on the east side of the road. It's a young bird
with just a blush of color on the head but seemed perfectly calm and
unconcerned by our attention. An El Nino aberration or just a wandering young
one with a faulty gyroscope?