Spark Birds

A flock of Sandhill Cranes. Photo taken on Feb 15, 2024, just outside of Dinosaur National Monument.

Most birders you speak with will be able to tell you about a species that got them interested in the hobby. This is what we refer to as one’s spark bird. It’s an encounter that fires up our curiosity, and is a catalyst for a burning and lifelong passion. When I think of mine, I have to go all the way back to my teenage years, to a time when I was growing up as a small-town hayseed on a farm outside of Naples, Utah. My spark birds were Sandhill Cranes.

I heard Sandhill Cranes before I saw them. On a fall day, just after we harvested our ten acres of oats, I was standing on our back porch, staring out over open farmland, and looking towards Split Mountain in the distant Dinosaur National Monument. As I stood there quietly, a rolling bugle sounded somewhere above me. I looked up, and saw nothing. This was a sound that I didn’t recognize, even after constant roaming of our field, as well as the neighbors acreage, which extended for miles in each direction. As I continued to listen, and wonder, the silhouettes of massive birds began to materialize high in the sky. Their calls got louder as they descended, until the sound was almost deafening. Dozens of cranes had formed into a tight vortex high in the sky, and were spiraling towards the earth. When they finally touched down in the field, they bent over and immediately began to forage through the stubble of oat stalks that had been left behind.

I had never seen anything like this, and in my young mind, I felt like the birds were nearly as large as our horses, which were grazing nearby. I ran inside to grab a pair of binoculars, and returned to the porch. The cranes were far enough away to not be disturbed by my clamor and excitement. I looked at them, first noticing a gray skirt of feathers flecked with copper. I next saw white cheeks, a crimson cap, a piercing yellow eye, and a spear-like bill. I ran back inside, and looked them up in my dad’s National Geographic Field Guide to the Birds of North America. To that point, I had no idea that a bird like this existed. The field guide helped me with the ID, but I still had unanswered questions. I wondered how such large birds flew, where they came from, and where they were going. I was in a state of unbridled rapture over the birds that had touched down, and demanded my attention.

The cranes returned to our field throughout the following week, and every time I saw them out there, I’d take another look. In the months after the cranes departed, I started to look at other birds: a Bald Eagle that roosted in the skeleton of a cottonwood along the irrigation canal, Cedar Waxwings feasting on fermented crabapples in our nearest neighbors tree, and a covey of California Quail that inhabited a feral willow patch in the southeast corner of our land. Watching birds was something that I added to my wandering in the hours between the time the school bus dropped me off at home, and when my mom finished making dinner later in the evening.

Over the years, my favorite bird has changed many times. It all started with the cranes, but in the last few years, I would have said Black-capped Chickadee, Black-billed Magpie, Black-throated Gray Warbler, and now White-winged Dove, when pressed for an answer to the question regarding which species I most admire. Despite the many shifts, Sandhill Cranes will always be the birds that got me in to birding.

Fall migration has begun now, and cranes are starting to move back through the deserts of eastern Utah. I recently stood on a sandy hillside that overlooks a manmade wetland, and I heard their forceful calls from below. I took a few steps to my side to get to a better vantage point, and it spooked many of the birds that were down on the water. A single crane flew up and over the hill I was standing on, headed east, to the other wet areas that were behind me. Its body was rustier than normal, meaning it had spent a lot of time over the summer dying its typically gray feathers with large amounts of iron rich mud. It held its bill open, panting in the heat as it exerted energy.

I watched the crane fly past me, and it seemed as if time slowed. It felt like we made eye contact, and shared the experience. This made me recall the magic of my earliest memories with the species. My love for the desert, and my love for birds came from the same place, my childhood home in eastern Utah. Sandhill Cranes were my spark bird, a majestic species that got me into a lifelong passion. They feel so much more special now that I am back home, and I am seeing them through a similar lens as I first did.

Every year I take a birding break during the intense heat of July and August. All the birds slow down and go quiet during that time period. The breeding season is over, and the they have little more to sing about. I no longer fight this urge to rest, and it’s the best time to do so. I went out for a day of August birding because I had nothing else to do. When I saw this particular crane, I felt a similar spark as I did thirty years ago. This individual arrested my attention in the same way as the flock that touched down in our farm field. Its copper feathers glimmered in the afternoon sun. It was both a literal and figurative spark that pulled me back in, and got me emotionally ready for the intense watching I do every year during fall migration.