I've been working on a painting filled with Sandhill Cranes. As I study the cranes I am reminded of my first encounter with them in the Summer Lake Wildlife Refuge. At first I thought nothing was there in the empty landscape save the dried winter reeds and low grasses, dormant in the icy late winter winds. And then all of a sudden I saw them, enormous, awkward, yet surprisingly graceful as well, the same bleached violet-brown-gray of the sleeping marsh, comfortable residents of their world.
More recently I saw the cranes at Summer Lake during their mating season. I was lucky to observe the mating behavior of two birds close by my parked car. As the two birds danced and preened in their elaborate mysterious ritual I cautiously snapped pictures through the unopened window, then quietly and slowly eased the car away to leave them to their privacy. Like long distance relay runners, these huge migratory birds carry something with them rare and precious, an unconscious instinct, a seed of survival to sow in the present and pass into the future. Perfectly adapted, the old generation passes on the necessary knowledge to the new. And the cycle continues.
My favorite memory of Sandhill Cranes is a late summer evening in French Glen, seated on a low hill watching the day dissolve, rosy light giving way to empty blue gray dusk. Over the Malheur Marsh the whirring calls of the cranes echoed across the wide basin. Quiet, so quiet, save the bird calls, hypnotic like the ringing of a Tibetan prayer bowl. Wild, primordial sound in perfect harmony with creation, ancient and timeless. I felt humbled to witness to such searing beauty.
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