Alouette Field Naturalists Notes
W. Robinson
The Katzies who occupied the lower Pitt valley before the coming of the white man, had, as one of their Guardian Spirits, the sandhill crane. According to their legends, Khaals, a being of marvelous powers, came upon two Katzie sisters as they were digging Indian potatoes in the marsh. When he was told that they were doing this because it was all they had to eat, he said, "Very well. You shall fly and you shall become sandhill cranes. Henceforth you shall roam over the meadows as you do now.” And he raised his hands and transformed them into cranes. So the cranes laugh and dance after they root up the ground just as the two sisters laughed and danced when they dug up their potatoes. So said Diamond Jenness in his book, The Faith of a Coast Salish Indian.
The fact I mention this to point out that the Sandhill Crane has been part of the Pitt meadows area for a great many years and is not, as some people believe, a recent arrival since the building of the dykes. It would be a shame if, in our zeal to "manage” the marshes we inadvertently upset some vital balance and lose our old friends, the Sandhills.
In order to learn more about our local cranes, particularly those inhabiting the Pitt Polder, we have, this year undertaken a pretty thorough study of the birds. This involved almost daily visits to their various feeding areas and nesting sites beginning the First of April (when they arrived) and it will continue until they leave in October. We have learned quite a bit about their behaviour patterns and have come to know at least three pairs intimately. That is, we worry about them when one is missing or when there is a storm on the meadows, or if the planes are flying low again over their nesting area. Now, six weeks after incubation has been completed, we have seen and heard five young cranes. These five belong to three pairs of cranes. Two pairs successfully hatched 2 young each and the other young has been seen only with one of its parents, which could mean that the other adult is somewhere in marsh with the other chick. Young Sandhills must be kept separated for the first few weeks as they tend to fight and often will kill each other in some sort of sibling rivalry. So the male adult takes one young and the other stays with the female. When the female wants to brood them, they call off the feud and snuggle under her warm feathers together. Apparently this works quite well, at least with the one pair we are able to watch regularly, because the two young are still thriving and are now, at six weeks old, about two and a half feet high and a warm reddish brown. Altogether, on the Polder, there are six nesting pairs of cranes and at least two (possibly four) bachelor cranes not yet breeding. Three pairs, as I said, are raising five young. One pair lost its brood,probably because of the cold rainy weather during incubation. The other two pairs nested in inaccessible areas and we will be unable to ascertain the results of their labours until they re-appear in the feeding areas later in the summer. The single cranes move about from one feeding area to another, whereas the cranes with young stay in a feeding area not far from where they nested.
We are preparing a detailed report on our findings for this year and will be sending copies to the Fish and Wildlife Branch and the Provincial Museaum in Victoria. If the information gained will help protect the cranes and their habitat, it will certainly be worth every rain-soaked minute spent on the survey.
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