Most of the Sandhill cranes on Bosque del Apache are Greater Sandhill Cranes(Grus canadensis tabida) while about 10-15 percent are the subspecies Lesser Sandhill Cranes(Grus canadensis canadensis)which are about 15 percent smaller.
“This magnificent wading bird…is one of the most widely distributed birds occurring on the North American Continent. Its resounding… call is echoed from the beautiful palm-bordered marshes of the tropics to the eternally ice-bound islands of the Arctic seas. Thus it covers the full range of North American climatic conditions, and it is one of our two or three feathered examples of such highly developed adoption. Where ever this bird occurs it lends a charm to the wild solitudes that it frequents. “Herbert Brandt Alaska Bird Trails.
The Sandhill Crane’s call also provides an echo into my youth when I used to drove from Champaign –Urbana, Illinois to the Jasper Pulaski Wildlife Reserve in northern Indiana to view them and listen to their haunting calls. Thus, when we again saw thousands of them at the Bosque del Apache NWR it was like a homecoming.
We saw a rarity, the Leucositic Sandhill Crane - not an albino but largely white. There is one photo of the Sandhill Cranes dancing, one of their most famous behaviors.