A drastic measure of water level between the two pictures of the nest. I remember the weekend in March before the baby crane hatched how I worried because there was going to be a hard rain and the nest was already so saturated. I was sure that crane egg would be washed away. But you have to look at nature I guess, the cranes never once doubted that their nest was high and dry even when it was almost under water. They would constantly add nesting material to build it up higher. And now look at the difference, they don't even bother now. Since Early April. We have had little rain, patches here and there, but nothing at all measurable. My yard is almost devoid of grass, keeping the garden from burning out is a constant struggle. The sun is already scorching, seems like August out there.
Tonight we got about a half hour of a decent watering. We are again at the same place as we were going on the third summer. The lake is still 7 feet down. I saw that my neighbor across the lake had to have a new well dug, theirs ran dry.Deja vu from the last summers when a couple other neighbors had the same problem.
Every night the cranes now fly together back to their nest. The baby's wings work a bit clumsily, but he gets where he is going even when he over shoots. The night I first saw him fly to the nest, the parents stopped at the nest and he kept flying for about fifty feet beyond the dry zone into the lake, he swam the rest of the way home. The next night the family flew home and the baby did a complete turn and ended up back here on the shore. The parents waited about five minutes to see if he would fly back to the nest again, but he didn't so both parents flew back here and waited for the baby and they all swam back to the nest. He's getting stronger and bigger each day. I think he will be bigger than his Papa soon, it might be the baby who shoos the parents off when he's old enough!
