Hobbies And Interests
Sandhill Crane Types
North America has six sandhill crane subspecies. Three of these migrate long distances across the continent: Greater, Lesser and Canadian. The other three -- Mississippi, Florida and Cuban -- do not migrate and are named for their habitat areas. The total population of all of these cranes, at the time of publication, is about 800,000. Sandhill cranes are omnivorous, enjoying tubers, roots and seeds. They will eat insects, mice and snakes when they happen upon them.
A Classroom Visits the Sandhill Crane Migration
A group of fourth graders from Henderson Community School in Henderson, Nebraska, took a field trip to watch sandhill cranes migrate along the Platte River. The class posted online comments about what they learned there. One group posted that the sandhill cranes have been "coming to the Platte River for over ten million years." The same group also noted that the cranes "eat water snakes, snails, and earthworms."
Garter and Ribbon Snakes
For the curious, it is important to understand how the sandhill cranes can manage to eat snakes. The basic reason is that the snakes they come upon actually are tiny ones. Some herpers -- in other words, snake experts -- show many Internet photos of many kinds of garter and ribbon snakes that coexist in sandhill crane habitats. Close-up photos show that these slender snakes are often very skinny.
Saving Cranes
Operation Migration is a nonprofit organization working to increase the population of cranes by reintroducing young cranes to their migratory paths. Organization personnel train the cranes from infancy to bond with the trainers, who eventually fly ultralight aircraft with them and their species along the migratory route. The infant cranes learn to join their kind. Due to this work, the population of three major crane species has improved.