Sandhill Crane

Description

Sandhill Cranes are one of the largest birds in Alaska, growing to be almost three feet tall with a 6-foot wingspan. They have red skin on the crown attached to a black chisel-shaped bill that allows them to eat seeds, berries, bugs, or even frogs and rodents. Sandhill Cranes have a gray body, with occasional rust staining, a long neck, and long black legs that help them to escape hunters.

Sandhill Cranes are migratory and return to Alaska in May to reproduce. Their breeding display, the dance of the Sandhills, is one of the strangest displays seen on the tundra or wetlands. The dance starts with a deep bow, followed by big leaps, skips, and more bows that will continue for many minutes.

Habitat and Status

The Sandhill Crane is a common spring migrant and a common, occasionally abundant, fall migrant in the Chugach Region. They breed at low densities in the region, preferring wet tundra, marshes, and other similar environments for nesting and raising their young. Their nests are slight indents in the ground lined with dry grass and other plants nearby as well as feathers. Both male and female take turns incubating the eggs, usually two, until the young are born a month later. The parents will care for their young until they fledge, sometime in August, and will begin migration afterwards.

Sandhill cranes are widely distributed wherever wetlands occur in the Chugach Region.

Traditional Use

Like many other birds in the Chugach Region, cranes were and are hunted, used to supplement a diet heavy in fish and marine creatures.

Women and children traditionally played a game like “ring-around-the-rosie,” but only in the fall as birds flew south or as the Sandhill Cranes arrived. They would hold hands and skip in a circle in the direction of the sun singing. They sang, “Circle around, stretch your arms. How did he get up there?” After that, the women and children squatted to the ground and sang, “How did he get up there? Like a waterfall!”

Cranes and owls were considered ghosts who visited humans. In one story, Christianity vanquishes the ghost. A man named Urhtat was traveling with his son, Angashinga, in Sheep Bay (near Eyak). They arrived on the beach of Tingmialik in Gravina Bay to stay in the smokehouse for the night. As Urhtat and Angashinga were eating, the door opened, and a crane walked in and sat by the fire. Urhtat couldn’t move or speak as the crane, who was a ghost, looked him over. He turned to his son and said, “Son, you better hurry. We’ll take the baidarka back to Port Etches (on Hinchinbrook Island). A ghost came in on us.” As they got closer to the water, Urhtat saw under the water surface the crane with its eyes and flapping wings and fire. Angashinga attached a crucifix to the end of his father’s paddle, and as soon as the paddle entered the water the fire disappeared. From a nearby mountain top they heard the crane shout, “Lä-ä-ä-ä ! You did not get me, Urhtat!” Urhtat and Angashinga returned home safely, and the crane did not return to bother them.