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Show Notes on the Sandhill Crane Near Tremonton, Utah By WILLIAM H. MARSHALL! and LEE KAyz The sandhill crane (Crus canadensis tabida Peters) is one of Utah's least known birds, though it was conspicuous in our marshes when Stansbury first studied the areas adjacent to the Great Salt Lake in the late eighteen-forties. Because of the interest of all classes of nature students in this species, .a special effort was made in 1937 to. record pictorially its activities while in our state, and the following notes are intended as a background for this interesting record. Game wardens and local people reported to the research staff at the Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge that a group of cranes gathers annually each spring west and south of Tremonton. Arrangements were made to study this group in cooperation with the Utah State Fish and Game Commission in order to obtain definite data on them. After being notified by the local game warden of the arrival of the cranes on March 13, the authors spent two days noting their activities and making motion pictures of them. The birds usually remain two to three weeks each spring. Archie V. Hull, formerly of the Bear River Refuge staff, reports that in 1929 they arrived on March 15 and left on April 15; in 1933 their stay was from March 22 until April 10; and in 1935 they were known to have arrived by March 22. During the past spring they were first seen on March 12 and were gone by April 7. There are no authentic dates of their occurrence during other pe riods of the year, although reliable local people tell of seeing and hearing groups flying south late in the fall in recent years, and Ridgeway reported the species as a breeder in the Salt Lake Valley in 1875. Estimates on the numbers of sandhill cranes -using the area are even mo.re In 1935 there were probably about 1,000 birds. An actual count of meager. the birds both on a photograph and in the field on March 28, 1937, shows that there were nearly 310 in the group studied at that time. There may be other areas frequented by the birds at this same time of the year, as their numbers fluctuate greatly from year to year. The motion pictures amply demonstrate the activities of the birds. Most striking is the courtship behavior, which is so varied in character that verbal descriptions fail to do it justice. The comment of one farmer that the birds appeared 'loco' is perhaps the best term available. The birds do most of their feeding on newly sprouted waste wheat in dry farm fields of the area. On one occasion they were observed feeding in a dense group in a patch of salt grass (Distichlis spicata ), but it was impossible to determine what they were taking. Each day there was a regular flight of cranes from a section south and Corinne, where there are extensive marshy areas, to the dry farms near Tremonton. This flight occurred about 9 o'clock in the morning and the birds returned to the same general locality near Corinne soon after 4 o'clock in the afternoon. These flights were made at heights estimated at 1,000 feet and usually the birds were in groups of 20 to 30. When alighting they pitched down at a steep slope in a narrow spiral. west of 1 2 U. S. Biological Survey Refuge, Brigham City, Utah. Utah State Department of Fish and Game, Salt Lake City, Utah. 89 |
