I was just out walking my runway. Wind from the south 5-10, mostly near 10. I'm walking back to the cabin and 7 Sandhill cranes come in from my right over the trees, flare, and land to the north in formation maybe 50 yards in front of me- landing with a tailwind. I freeze. They freeze looking at me. One finally decides to start eating so I start walking knowing at any second they will take off-they always do.

As I approach them I hug the eastern edge of the runway against the trees. They show no sign of panic and by now I'm adjacent to them. And I realize there is no wind where I am. I'm now within 50 feet of the nearest one and they are all eating paying me no never mind. As I go past them and get up near my cross runway once again I have a 5-10 south wind.

How did they know this section of runway they turned right base to final on had no wind? How'd they know that? Clearly they are far superior pilots than I.

I use large birds as one of my wind indicators cause they always take off and land into the wind.

Since I've had my place every year one or two pair of sandhill cranes raise a young one here. But not this year, no young ones. And for the first time, yesterday, I had 18 sandhill cranes on the strip. We've had a cool, wet summer. Still snow in the low mountains. I wonder if mother nature told the sandhill cranes no chicks this year.

What a special place this Alaska is.

And they decelerate, using the apparent brisk walk rate of closure l am sure, on short final to touchdown slowly and softly on the desired spot.

Funny, as a full on chacheeko when I landed in King Salmon I heard them called Tundra Turkeys and didn't know they were called Sandhill Cranes for a few years.

They are amazing birds, unchanged for hundreds of thousands of years, they have their socialization habits we can only guess at.

They taste really good as long as they haven't been feeding on the mud flats, was gifted a rare roast leg after flying some kids from Naknek to Levalock in time for thanksgiving dinner and they brought me a plate with all the fixings: perfect salty gravy over thin sliced caribou back strap, low bush cranberry marmalade, mint porcupine, and that big leg of tundra turkey.

An old Upik man taught me how to stalk them, get real close, you hold one arm up high and tip the whole hand down, take about three stately strides, stop a moment, then dip the hand slowly all the way to the ground then slowly up two or three times, take a few more steps and repeat. I've worked my way within forty feet of a pair once with my ten gage single shot. Damn damp shells, was going to ground sluice the pair with one shot. Click... I pull the hammer back again. Click. I pop the breach open launching the dud into the mud while slowing reaching into my pocket for another shell. Click. Three rounds and no joy and now the birds are slowly walking away from me. Not sure if it was them or my lady friend sitting up the beach on my Big red laughing at me, probably both. Round four, barrel raised, birds sighted! Poooof like a dust dry fart after a big plate of biscuits n gravy at Gwennies. I saw the BB's land in the mud about ten feet short of both birds. They rise into the offshore wind toward me crossing over my head too fast to lead. Boom! Nothing, not even a feather, as they cackle almost as loud as my girlfriend is laughing...

Behind Leader Creak on the east side of naknek they would form up late summer, hundreds of them, it was an amazing sight, they would circle and rise on the mid morning thermals, practicing I suppose, and on the perfect convective afternoon when the wind went south and the bottoms of the big Cumulus were a good fifteen or sixteen K hundreds would rise at once circling and circling right up to the gray cloud bottoms, vee up, and vector south.

One of the most powerful dreams of my life: they were forming up and flying away and I was on the ground begging them to take me with them, please please I pleaded, take me with you...

If I believed in such things The Sandhill Crane would be my totem creature. Perhaps I do.

Sadly a road was put through the backside of leader creak so the canneries didn't have to pay the King brothers to fly their help to Peterson Point and the Cranes didn't come no more...

Rocket

This thread is as close to Hemingway as BCP is ever going to get. Rocket, you had me laughing out loud.

Speaking of our fellow aviators: I had another close encounter with the resident golden eagle up at 8800' on the cliffs near my place. We both observed proper soaring courtesy (circled the same direction) and got within 30-40' of each other, while maintaining eye contact. Could be the same one I've been sharing the lift with for a bit over 40 years now, they can reach 75 years I've heard. It's never gotten exciting, but it's always clear who's in charge, and it isn't me. 1.7 miles from home, pretty cool for a kid raised in a Detroit suburb.

I had a similar experience many years ago in my sailplane, we even did a mile of two together towards the next thermal it was "religious".

Awesome post Rocket.

Regarding eagles, they are the only bird that won't get out of my way, everything else clears when I'm coming. Apparently they think they own the sky.

Zzz wrote:This thread is as close to Hemingway as BCP is ever going to get. Rocket, you had me laughing out loud.

I'm not so sure about that, the Hemingway part anyway, more like Schultz a la Lucy and Charlie Brown, you know where Lucy pulls the football and Charlie Brown lands flat on his back. One of these days ask me about how my 250ES almost killed me. Twice. First in the winter at thirty below with little red pieces of big red plastic spread out like Christmas ornaments on the ice road to lake camp and then mid summer laying with a mouthful of trail gravel behind the library in my way to king salmon city dock soaked in gasoline getting sucked dry by White Soxs. Nether involved firearms waterfawl salmonoids or aircraft, thank the maker.


Rocket

Thanx Brother.

I smoked a couple green heads through the prop launching out of the slough behind Dimand J on floats, duck pâté, had a windshield full of wimbrils that made me touch the firewall with a rudder pedal on wheels in my Tripacer, anyone who knows what I'm talking about knows what I'm talking about: lamchavec? Hit somthing with gray feathers that sounded like a pencil cracking in my Bose headset, a few moments later I see a crack in the lexan moving from my wing root inboard slowly as I'm slowly pulling power. Stopped at five inches and I drug her home at about 65 with a notch of flaps praying the plastic wouldn't part. Bird actually hit the leading edge fairing between the wing and the windshield. Lucky.

I used to pull the power and soar with the big birds in my 182B on the north side cliffs of the Naknek inlet, I would turn my head and look at them, they would turn their head and look at me, I would look, they would look. Figured they could tell by all the missing paint and patches that I wasn't to concerned about making this air a contact sport and they gave me the space I needed.

There had been a nest on a low snag in the middle of the tundra between the dump and Peterson Point, that road I mentioned that came through and stopped the Sandhill Crane roundup came about fifty yards from that nest and the Eagles never used it again. Couple other nests nearby but I'm hesitant to mention where they are cause. The DDT the Air Force sprayed around the King Salmon base had wiped out most of the top tear birds, about the time I showed up there were one or two but about ten years later there were many more. Guys started telling me the bald eagles were coming to the sound of gunshot in the winter to clean up the caribo carcasses even before the Raven.

Another dream: I hiked to the top of goony bird hill with my daughter the wind was blowing so hard we could hardly stand, her coat flapping in the wind starts to turn into feathers and she turns to me as her nose shifts into a golden beak, she turns her head away, spreads her wings, tucks her talons, then soars away. My daughter is The Eagle!


Rocket