🚀 go-pugleaf

No, they are spring breeders. Probably staking out winter feeding
territories
john neuman <sfl7fl@scfn.thpl.lib.fl.us> wrote in message
news:Pine.SUN.3.95.991007145404.14552A-100000@scfn...
> Is this the time of year for Sandhill Cranes to breed, their behavior is
> more aggressive this time of year. I live in central Florida.
>
>

In article <Pine.SUN.3.95.991007145404.14552A-100000@scfn>,
  john neuman <sfl7fl@scfn.thpl.lib.fl.us> wrote:
> Is this the time of year for Sandhill Cranes to breed, their behavior is
> more aggressive this time of year. I live in central Florida.

--------------------------------

Sandhill Crane Dance Revue:

     This is the cranes' season
of migration and dancing.  They
put on their most extensive
courtship displays this time of
year, even though they nest in
the Spring, like most birds.
Often, these dance sessions take
place at areas where they stopover for varying periods,
partway through their migration.
Apparently, the dances are between mated pairs or perhaps
those who are in the process of
selecting mates for the first time.

  Some other birds, such as geese, also use their wintering or stopover
grounds as the places they carry out their courtship and pairing.  Then, they
can procede together to the nesting grounds, with no wasted time there,
pursuing potential mates.  This pairing procedure may also serve a role in
preventing inbreeding and in maintaining the uniformity and genetic integrity
of the whole population of each species. Most species use numerous and often
widely separated nesting areas, but birds from these different breeding sites
tend to mingle on the wintering grounds.  When pairing takes place there, one
of the two, usually the male, will follow its new mate to a different nesting
area than that of their own origin.  This tends to homogenize the gene pool
of the species.  If pairing took place at each of these separate nesting
areas, only those from that closed group would breed together, which would
result in the eventual differentiation of new species or subspecies.

  In some cases, the formation of new variations within a species is
beneficial to their survival and sometimes it might not be.  This pattern of
wintering/nesting ground intermingling or separation seems to be working both
ways within different groups of related birds.	The Dusky Canada Goose
subspecies nests exclusively on the Copper River Delta in Alaska and they all
winter together in one region, mostly in Western Oregon.  They mingle with 3
other small subspecies during the Winter, but have little contact with larger
varieties, with which they might be inclined to form cross-pairs.  This
isolation is precisely what allowed them to become a separate subspecies in
the past.  However, due to drastic changes in their natural nesting ground
environment, caused by the earthquake of 1964, they are now in a threatened
situation.  Other subspecies that have numerous separate nesting areas and
which intermingle at the time of pairing, have much greater flexibility in
surviving such changes.

  If you can observe the cranes closely during their courtship dances, it
would be interesting to note how tightly each sticks to one other bird. Do
they ever trade partners and do they perhaps use the dances to establish
other social relationships besides pairing?

Steve McDonald
Eugene, Oregon


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Last Xmas I was in Fort Meyers Beach and Orlando. Along the back roads I
found many Sandhills.  In photographing them the males seem to be very
protective of the females. They made it quite clear that any closer
activity on my part would not be tollerated. So, bigger lens and a tree or
a fence between us seemed a good idea at the time.
Ralph



john neuman <sfl7fl@scfn.thpl.lib.fl.us> wrote in article
<Pine.SUN.3.95.991007145404.14552A-100000@scfn>...
> Is this the time of year for Sandhill Cranes to breed, their behavior is
> more aggressive this time of year. I live in central Florida.
>
>
>
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<html><head></head><BODY bgcolor="#FFFFFF"><p><font size=2 color="#000000" face="Arial">Last Xmas I was in Fort Meyers Beach and Orlando. Along the back roads I found many Sandhills.  In photographing them the males seem to be very protective of the females. They made it quite clear that any closer activity on my part would not be tollerated. So, bigger lens and a tree or a fence between us seemed a good idea at the time.<br>Ralph<br><br><br><br>john neuman <<font color="#0000FF"><u>sfl7fl@scfn.thpl.lib.fl.us</u><font color="#000000">> wrote in article <<font color="#0000FF"><u>Pine.SUN.3.95.991007145404.14552A-100000@scfn</u><font color="#000000">>...<br>> Is this the time of year for Sandhill Cranes to breed, their behavior is<br>> more aggressive this time of year. I live in central Florida.<br>> <br>> <br>> </p>
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John,
Cranes start nesting in February  in central Florida. By June most are
finished.
Hoatzin

john neuman wrote:

> Is this the time of year for Sandhill Cranes to breed, their behavior is
> more aggressive this time of year. I live in central Florida.