MISSED THINGS

Missed 3 phone calls on my cell yesterday about someone wanting to make a major purchase of my jewelry. I feel sick. I don't know where I was that I did not hear the phone.The only place I can think of is the woods, where I went for a brief time just to see if I coud photo something new and different and perhaps some deer.
I did not see any deer at all. It was sunny and wet underfoot so it was quiet. I was far enough from the road to not hear traffic.
And suddenly, so far away it was just barely audible, I heard them.

I could not see them because of the trees. But I stood leaning against a mossy tree listening to the Sandhills as they approached, came very close and must have been either low or a huge flock, and  vanished again. I LOVE the sound of the Sandhills. I used to count them for Audubon because our house is, literally, part of the flyway.

At my house they show up about noon, so I looked at my cell phone and it was 12:23 but they probably took 5 minutes to approach, and go over, and disappear again, on their way to Jasper Wildlife in Indiana.

When you count you first start (or I did) by counting by twos. Then 5s. Then 10s. Once you know what 10 Sandhill cranes overhead looks like, you've got it made. I sat outside once years ago all afternoon with the dogs and counted over 2000 Cranes from about 10 in the morning until about 3 pm. Huge flocks, wheeling and calling and giving me, for that day, permanent goosebumps. Cranebumps.

 

And in Indiana, when they land in the evening in the fields at the Wildlife Preserve, you get an idea of how many you counted and how many you missed:

 

 

(This is not my photo. It is from Natl Geo and I think it is the Nebraska site, but this is pretty much what Jasper looks like as well. I do not know where those photos are.)

My dogs, when the Cranes go overhead with their strange, desolate calls, look up once. Not again.I wonder if sporting breeds pay more attention. Mine are not birders, but does a pointer's heart rate skyrocket when he hears those huge birds?