Rescuing a Sandhill Crane

One thing I'll miss after I step down as our Village President is that you never really know what each month will bring. Sunday brought the opportunity to help an injured sandhill crane.

Village resident Nan Navalta Nehls reached out to me a few weeks ago because a family of three cranes had taken up residence in her yard, and the adult male and juvenile both had leg injuries. Nan had reached out to the Bird Center of Washtenaw County for advice and potential help. The initial advice was to monitor the situation to see if they recovered, and indeed the young one did. But the adult male's injury was too severe to heal on its own, and on Sunday a wildlife rescuer named Andrea came up to Wolverine Lake to see if we could capture the crane to take him to the Howell Nature Center for rehabilitation.

Here are some pictures from the rescue:

Standing on his right leg only.

So, he couldn't walk, but when Andrea approached with her long rod and loop we found that he could still fly...

... and so he did, across the street to the lakeshore.

From there he took off again, flying...

... between this hedgerow and the house next door. This is where I finally became useful because I heard him headed down that small passageway, and blocked his way with an umbrella that I had brought along to help with the crane capture. (The umbrella gives you added size to help herd the bird, a useful tip I picked up in a goose management class.)

When faced with an unexpected umbrella the injured crane dodged and crashed into the shrubbery, where Andrea managed to capture him.

With some help after he was captured she gave him an initial examination:

His leg was indeed broken and infected. Andrea also said that she could feel that he had lost a lot of weight. He was indeed in need of rescue and rehabilitation if he was going to one day return to the wild.

Everybody helped to wrap him up so that she could bring him to her car:

... and from there, it was off to the Howell Nature Center, where he is now Case # B-980-18. They have confirmed the fractured leg and infection. He'll be getting antibiotics and a splint. Hopefully he'll recover and be well enough to release before November, so that he can be reunited with the female adult and the juvenile before they migrate.

I'll post any updates on his health below.

Many thanks to Nan for reaching out and organizing the rescue, to Andrea for her expert crane-wrangling, and to our volunteer bird-herders, Paul and Ryan Nehls, my wife Monique, our next door neighbors Anna and Lexi, and my fellow Wolverine Lake Councilperson David Dumont, who took on the task with zero warning under the mantle of "other council duties as required."

Get well soon, Mr. Crane. We hope to see you back on the lake with your family.