Unison Calling

My fascination began when I entered my sister’s neighborhood for the first time. Located on a small lake in a chain of lakes in central Florida, I drove through the neighborhood entrance, down a broad street with ranch-style houses and manicured yards, and an established canopy of trees fringed in Spanish moss. When I rounded a corner on my sister’s street, I had to quickly brake because a flock of tall birds looking like pieces in a yard art display was lazily crossing, in no hurry to get to the other side.

The mature birds were heron-like—four-feet tall, gray and worn-looking, with dark frond-shaped bills and patches of red upon their heads, a Red Hat Society of the bird world. The two juveniles in the group were rusty-brown with downy feathers but lacking the red patches. Whereas herons are quick to fly away when approached, as I inched forward, these birds refused to be urged along, oblivious to my presence. They weren’t herons. After what felt like minutes, they reached the other side of the street and I continued on my way, forgetting about the birds in my excitement to see my family.

My sister and I visited and caught up, and that evening, we went to watch her daughter’s ballet recital. As we left the neighborhood, I saw the birds again, and asked about them. They were Florida Sandhill Cranes, she told me, a species that made their nests along the lake somewhere and spent much of their time foraging for food in the neighborhood. 

That night, I shared my niece’s bedroom on the front corner of the house, and the following morning, I was startled out of a deep sleep by an otherworldly reveille, a loud, resonant hakakakaw. My niece sighed and rolled over, a bit irritated by Mother Nature’s alarm clock. I got up to look out the window and saw the birds again, perched on a high mound in the adjacent yard pecking the ground for their breakfast while making a rattling noise deep in their throats.

A little research revealed the Florida Sandhill Cranes are a non-migratory subspecies of cranes that inhabit freshwater marshes throughout peninsular Florida. They are social birds who live in groups or pairs. The adults are monogamous, with a lifespan of up to twenty years. They are omnivorous opportunistic feeders, I read, with a diet consisting of seeds and roots, insects, snakes, and small mammals. Interestingly, they do not “fish” like herons. In the state of Florida, the Sandhill Cranes are designated as “threatened” due to the loss of some of their natural habitats. They have had to adapt. The cranes are preyed upon by alligators, and as they have become habituated, they fall prey to humans driving in cars, too impatient with them as they cross the street or dawdle in the middle.

I encountered the birds every time I left the house that weekend, whether walking or driving. They had no colorful plumes, no pretty trills, and a herky-jerky way of walking, and still I was mesmerized by them. I once saw two of them clumsily running to take off in flight, and it was there they showed their beauty with wing movements as graceful as ballerinas, with long necks that stretched out like swans and feet en pointe, trailing like kite tails.    

I’ve observed the birds on every occasion since that first visit. On a spring morning, I sat on the screened-porch drinking my coffee while watching a small flock in the side yard. They pecked at the soil constantly and walked in their slow rocking rhythm, their backward-bending knees kicking their legs spasmodically forward. One bird crouched down and then hopped up and back, flapping its wings in an awkward Elaine Benes dance. This was a courtship dance, I learned, an elaborate pretentious display both enchanting and amusing to watch.   

What I’ve found most fascinating in all these years is their song. In pairs or family groups, the cranes tilt their heads back and open their long throats making clicking noises which crescendo into full-throated bugle sounds, the same sound that woke me on my first visit. It’s a behavior ornithologists term “unison calling,” a strange syncopated song started by the male, followed by the female, and if present, the juvenile. The female calls out twice for every one call of the male. Ancient and haunting, it’s a sound that resonates on some deep level.     

Unison calling. I can’t help reading into the phrase. I’m struck by the term and all its connotations—those of being in accord, in agreement, in community and cooperation, in harmony, even sympathy. I’m compelled to permutate the phrase, to rearrange it into ‘calling unison,’ to parse it into ‘calling for unison.’

So, while this is a story about birds, it’s also not a story about birds. It’s a story with a beginning and middle but no proper conclusion, just an observation. In this year of the pandemic, of protests and deep political divides, when we’re all having to adapt and our resilience is constantly tested, many of us echo the crane’s primordial call, the call for unison.    

 

           

           

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