Zoo Encounters

I’ve always considered the Stanley cranes the most affable of the zoo’s outdoor birds, with their slightly chubby, cheerful-looking faces and large mild eyes.

[really, how much more benign
can you get?]

When they were moved to a different enclosure this summer and given a “Caution: Aggressive Cranes” sign, I thought it was just so they’d complement their neighbors, the much scarier wattled cranes:

It was only today that I began to revise my opinion, when all of a sudden the Stanley cranes stood erect, their wide eyes turning sharp and alert, and uttered a loud, ululating cry—possibly directed at the zoo visitors.

I really don’t know what the call was all about, but Annie and I weren’t the only ones to be surprised—and somewhat alarmed—by it: a woman with another group of visitors backed away from the fence, observing, “That’s some Jurassic Park shit!”

[not a crane, a cassowary;
but pretty Jurassic Park-y]

(My second favorite animal observation of the day came from Annie, who, when watching the prairie dogs, expressed a desire not just to pet one but to “wear one on my shoulder, like a combination parrot and hamster.” I had never thought about that before, but now it’s unlikely that I’ll ever pass the prairie dog exhibit without having a vision of that occurrence coming to pass.)

{A note: I do write all text and take all pictures. Please do not reproduce either without my permission.}

"Aggressive" Cranes

Recently the zoo decided to post “Caution: Aggressive Cranes” signs on the fencing of the Stanley cranes’ exhibit. Now, I have no problem with this warning being posted on the wattled cranes’ exhibit, because the way those several-foot-high birds stab at insects in the soil with their long, knife-sharp beaks is quite intimidating. (Also, they have scary orange eyes.) –But the Stanley cranes have always seemed entirely mild-mannered to me, and the parent-child feeding interaction I witnessed this past weekend has not convinced me otherwise:

(Is that the face of an aggressive crane? No…!)

It’s true that a clever crane tactic would be to look mild-mannered right until the point you peck someone in the head, but that strategy seems unlikely to me. And in any case, the better warning for such a species would be “Caution: Devious Cranes.”

{A note: I do write all text and take all pictures. Please do not reproduce either without my permission.}