On these cold, dreary days of January when the skies are gray and the forests drab, it’s a joy to visit a wildlife refuge to see the flocks of migratory birds that have congregated to escape the harsher winters of the north.
The loud honking, cackling, touchdown splashes, and flapping of thousands of wings is an invigorating cacophony of sound.
Every winter millions of waterfowl and other migratory birds take the Atlantic or Mississippi Flyways from Canada and the Upper Midwest to Tennessee and neighboring states in search of unfrozen lakes and fields where they can find food.
Visit any lake or river this month, and you are bound to see ubiquitous mallard ducks and Canada geese, some that live here year-round, but many more that migrate from the Great Lakes in the winter.
Other migrating waterfowl you could encounter include American black ducks, which look like mallards but are darker; gadwalls, brown ducks that “burp” and are intricately patterned; and buffleheads, small ducks with cute, oversized heads.
American coots, colloquially called “mud hens” for their bobbing heads, are also common winter residents in Tennessee.
It is hard to believe that our national symbol, the American bald eagle, almost went extinct in Tennessee because of DDT. Today bald eagles are a common sight, and in January, their numbers surge. They can often be seen high up in trees beside large bodies of water like Reelfoot Lake in west Tennessee and Dale Hollow and Norris Lakes to the north and northeast.
Comical-looking American white pelicans, also once rare in this state, are now frequent winter residents in certain parts of Tennessee, most notably Reelfoot Lake, Kentucky Lake west of Nashville, and Chickamauga Lake to the southeast of us.
These huge birds with a 9-foot wingspan use their enormous yellow bills to scoop up fish from underwater. They hang out in groups on shallow parts of a lake and are a delight to watch.
Spotting a pod of prehistoric-looking pelicans is exciting, but the star of the January migratory bird show is probably the sandhill crane.
So beloved are these birds that two nearby wildlife refuges hold January festivals to celebrate the tens of thousands of sandhills that stop over there in the winter.
Hiwassee National Wildlife Refuge on Chickamauga Lake and Wheeler National Wildlife Refuge west of Huntsville, AL, both provide excellent opportunities to view the cranes this month, with Wheeler providing numerous blinds for birders and photographers to get up close and personal.
There is no mistaking when the sandhill cranes arrive in our part of the country. Their loud staccato bugle call can be heard 2 miles away. This is because they have a trachea (windpipe) that is longer than their body and curved in an S-shape. The bony rings in their trachea amplify sound and add harmonics.
One winter I heard splashes and the oddest cackling purr coming from a pond off the Virgin Falls trail. It was a single sandhill crane very enthusiastically vocal about hunting in a small pond “boiling” with hundreds of panicked, leaping little fish or frogs.
Very few sights are as breathtaking as that of thousands of sandhill cranes standing shoulder to shoulder in a mudflat, picking for insects, roots and grains, preening with long blades of grass, bowing and leaping into the air with outstretched wings and pumping heads.
The sound of multitudes of chattering sandhills and the splashes of hundreds of incoming birds is exhilarating.
Sandhill cranes are magnificent birds – long legged and lanky, standing 4 feet tall and flying with a wingspan of 6-7 feet. They are mottled gray and black with rusty patches and a brilliant red crown. Smithsonian Magazine says the sandhill crane is one of the most successful life forms on Earth, millions of years old and outlasting more than 99% of all species that have ever existed.
Do yourself a favor this month and take a trip to Hiwassee or Wheeler National Wildlife Refuges to see these amazing birds. Be sure to bring binoculars, maybe a telephoto lens, and definitely a sense of awe to see the sandhill cranes and other winter migratory birds that are sure to brighten even the dreariest winter day.
You may even get lucky and see one of the 600 or so migrating whooping cranes that were brought back from near-extinction with the creative efforts of the conservation biologists who taught juvenile cranes their migration route with ultralight planes!