Well, we may not have had a lot of cranes tonight but we saw lots of monarch butterflies.  They continually flew into our field of vision while we were scanning the marsh with our scopes.  

The habitat restoration that has been done behind the kiosk is providing a nice spot for songbirds.  Most of the songbirds in the species list below were observed there.

Our blackbird count is obviously an estimate but is indicator of the massive numbers we saw tonight. We had fly bys from both sides of the overlook as well as the normal traffic from the west.  Egrets continue to come in along with herons.

eBird checklist is available at: https://ebird.org/view/checklist/S59864620

Crane counters:   Gary Siegrist, Ross Green, & Steve Jerant

Compiler:  Steve Jerant

Submitted by Steve Jerant

Crane Count:  10 (63 observed in the area)

Species count:  34

15 Canada Goose

40 Wood Duck

40 Mallard

5 Mourning Dove

2 Common Nighthawk

73 Sandhill Crane -- 10 stayed in marsh

1 Killdeer

1 Wilson's Snipe

4 Great Blue Heron

7 Great Egret

12 Turkey Vulture

2 Northern Harrier

1 eagle sp. -- About one mile away. Unable to verify which type but flight profile was eagle. 

1 Red-bellied Woodpecker

1 Hairy Woodpecker

1 Northern Flicker

1 Eastern Wood-Pewee

1 Eastern Phoebe

3 Blue Jay

2 American Crow

1 Barn Swallow

1 White-breasted Nuthatch

1 House Wren

1 Gray Catbird

200 American Robin

25 Cedar Waxwing

3 American Goldfinch

2 Field Sparrow

2 Song Sparrow

4000 Red-winged Blackbird

1 Brown-headed Cowbird

300 Common Grackle

1 Common Yellowthroat

1 Northern Cardinal

1 Indigo Bunting

Number of Taxa: 35

You can view past postings and historical crane counting data at 

Haehnle site at http://www.haehnlesanctuary.org/crane-count