Sandhill Cranes, Ewing Bottoms

Traveling west of Mustatatuck NWR and Seymour, Indiana, you'll come to Ewing Bottoms which sits northwest of Brownstown. The Bottoms is a very, very vast and low lying area of farmland known mostly to the locals. Cross the bridge over Driftwood River just outside Ewing to reach the Bottoms.

A two lane road cuts right through the middle of the farmland and half a mile or more down the road you can find the Sandhill Cranes. Hundreds and hundreds of Sandhill Cranes are wintering here in the Bottoms. I snapped several hundred images today and was lucky enough to capture this image of an adult and juvenile standing side by side. Juvenile Sandhill Cranes have a brown or tan face and head. I love the contrast of the adult next to the juvenile.

I turned onto a farm road that was also a public road and found myself surrounded on both sides by huge flocks of cranes off in the distance. So beautiful with their long, long legs and their long beaks and red faces. You can find the Cranes here in Ewing Bottoms until late February at which time they will slowly begin to decrease in numbers as smaller flocks will pick up and head home for Canada and points north. By early March they should all be on their Spring migration home.

And if capturing these beauties wasn't enough today, I did capture an image of a Whooping Crane. Wow! So excited about that. Also I took a few images of Yellow Legged Gulls that had flown in to one of the farm fields across from the Cranes, and I also captured a few images of a pair of Northern Shovelers floating on a pond of water. What a birding day I had. More photos coming. ENJOY!