Monday morning while driving back to Duluth from the Twin Cities I stopped by Crex Meadows. I left by 5:30 am which allowed me to reach Crex 1/2 hour before sunrise. While hundreds, if not thousands of Sandhill Cranes leave Crex each morning to feed in surrounding farm fields, before killing frosts hit this area of western Wisconsin the marshes / sedges grasses of Crex are also popular feeding spots. Why visit a corn field when there is  lots of food in the marsh? The Minnesota DNR says this about habitat (Crex is just east of Minnesota into Wisconsin): “In Minnesota, nesting habitat consists of lowland emergent marshes and meadows dominated by sedges and grasses, often with stands of phragmites, cattails, bulrush, and wild rice occurring in deeper water in larger basins.”

Here are a whole lot of images I took … starting at 7:00 am, 30 minutes before sunrise, till about 9 am.

Before Sunrise

Flying into the Sedge Grasses minutes before sunrise

A Mass Take-Off Event from the Main Dike Road

Feeding after Sunrise

As a wildlife photographer it pays to be good, but it also helps to be lucky! Yesterday evening I was driving home from the Twin Cities to Duluth. I convinced my wife that taking two hour detour to Crex Meadows to view the Sandhill Crane migration was a worthwhile activity. As I turned the car off Interstate 35 and drove towards Grantsburg, Wisconsin I wondered if I was foolish asking for this detour. Storms and heavy cloud clover were working their way through central Minnesota. However, in the west I saw a potential gap in the sky, and I knew thousands of sandhill cranes would be flying back to the sedge swamp to spent the night after having fed all day on corn in the surrounding farmlands.

Crex Meadows is one of the prime birding locations about which I have information on this blog’s “Minnesota Birding Locations” page (Crex Meadows is actually 10 miles east of the Minnesota border!).

Thus, knowledge if key for any wildlife photographer, but I had NO IDEA the skies would turn on fire. My hoped for gap in the clouds worked their way east, not SW or NE, and gave me phenomenal light. Here are the results …

Sandhill Cranes Flying Back to Crex Meadows at Sunset
(the third image was taken just before the sunset really got going … it shows how quickly light changes!)

A photo after the Cranes had finished Flying, but the display was ongoing!

Over 21,000 Sandhill Cranes have stopped at the Crex Meadows Wildlife Refuge to feed and rest during their fall migration. In addition, there are lots of ducks, eagles and swans. Yesterday morning I drove 100 miles south from northern Minnesota to Grantsburg, Wisconsin to insure I was in the wetlands before dawn. When the sun rose, the cranes started to move out of their night time roosts to eat in the surrounding farmlands. The noise and sight was inspiring and beautiful. Here are a few photos and two videos I took shortly after sunrise.

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An bald eagle looks over possible breakfast birds!

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A small flock of sandhill cranes starts to take off

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Still photographs of sandhill cranes and one trumpeter swan