Cranes Quotes

“Out of some far recess of the sky a tinkling of little bells falls soft upon the listening land. Then again silence. Now comes a baying of some sweet-throated hound, soon the clamor of a responding back. Then a far clear blast of hunting horns, out of the sky into the fog.

High horns, low horns, silence, and finally a pandemonium of trumpets, rattles, croaks , and cries that almost shakes the bog with its nearness, but without yet disclosing whence it comes. At last a glint of sun reveals the approach of a great echelon of birds. On motionless wing they emerge from the lifting mists, sweep a final arc of sky, and settle in clangorous descending spirals to their feeding grounds. A new day has begun on the crane marsh.”
― Aldo Leopold, A Sand County Almanac and Sketches Here and There

“Ghost grabbed the cab cage and kicked at the driver. Flesh tore. The crewman ripped away from the forklift and fell on the ice, steering wheel welded to his hands. Ghost stamped on the man’s head until it burst.
“Konecranes. Not one of ours.”
― Adam Baker, Outpost

“An idea prevails here, which I have heard repeated in several parts of the Morea, that the swallows come in spring from Africa on the backs of the cranes. A person of good credit has assured me, that he has seen a crane light upon a ship at sea with swallows on its back. The storks arrive in the Morea at the same time as the cranes, but are not swallow carriers, whether from want of charity, or want of strength, I cannot learn.”
― William Martin Leake, Travels in the Morea (Cambridge Library Collection - Archaeology)

“I stand shaking on the edge of a
cotton field near Tom Steed Reservoir,
Four whooping cranes were illegally
shot and killed here.
-
One whooper survived the initial shots
but died of its injuries as Oklahoma
game wardens tried to save it. Almost
three months later, feathers from the
dead remain, scattered like confetti in
the scrub. The shooters tried to hide
the birds before they left the scene, but
one of the cranes had a tracking device
attached to its leg.
-
Now a cardinal, red as blood, holds vigil
nearby. It's been here since I arrived.
This is a haunted place.”
― Michael Forsberg, Into Whooperland