Yesterday five of us traveled north to the Volant Strips in Lawrence County to find a northern shrike and short-eared owls.
What we hadn’t expected was a huge flock of 112 sandhill cranes! The total rose to 124 when we saw 12 in a later part of our trip.
This wintering flock is the largest I’ve ever seen outside of Nebraska.
In the end, we saw the shrike and two short-eared owls but they couldn’t match the wonder of so many sandhill cranes. 🙂
(photo by Steve Gosser, 2015)
Where is the Volant Strips?
Kathy, here’s a link to its location + bird information for Volant Strip Grasslands, Lawrence County, PA: http://ebird.org/ebird/hotspot/L793253 It’s called the Strips because its’ a recovered strip mine.
(NOTE: The “hybrid” maps is the easiest to see. For some reason the Street map is very faint in eBird)
Best places to see cranes in the fields are Bonani Rd & Golf Course Rd
That’s very cool. The first time we ever saw sandhill cranes was a few years ago in the Bruce Peninsula in Ontario on a field trip with the Botanical Society of Western PA to look for orchids. Then last spring we went on a field trip with the National Aviary to look for migrating water fowl, and we saw a few sandhill cranes in northwestern PA. But I can’t imagine seeing that many at one time. They are truly impressive birds.
have you been up to miller’s ponds (near pymatuning)? so many sandhill cranes! i was shocked they were in pennsylvania. thanks for the tip about volant!
here is a link to the area: https://www.birdingbuddies.com/birds/location/united_states/pennsylvania/pymatuning__millers_ponds/