I had read that there was a new sandhill crane family at Circle B Bar Reserve. As soon as I walked out on the trail, I saw them slowly making their way towards me. The little babies were so cute. One was much younger than the other. Maybe by a few days.

The smaller one was all wet. They must have been in the marsh.

He looked tired and plopped down for a rest while the parents and older sibling were looking for food. Maybe he was just tired since he was younger.

The oldest sibling stayed close the parent and was getting fed a few bugs.

They looks so funny, all wet.

The parents started cruising down the trail and closer into the marsh. I started taking pictures of a flock of vultures close by that were eating a turtle.

I looked over a few minutes later and noticed both babies were down in marsh and it looked like they were playing. The above and below were extremely cropped.

After a while I realized the older baby was hitting the younger one on the head with his beak. He was pulling out fuzz.  At that point I realized that the older one was attacking the younger one. I stood there at a loss of what to do. I took a few steps closer into the marsh but the parents came towards me and seemed to be guarding what was going on down there. Do I risk getting eaten by an alligator or poked in the head by a parent sandhill crane? The family started to move on and I thought maybe the little one would be okay, maybe the older one was just play fighting a little too hard.

We headed down the trail and a few hours later, we stopped by that same area and the entire family was gone. We thought they must have kept going and that the baby was okay. Later that night I had read on the Circle B Bar Facebook group that someone had seen the little one alone on the trail. The parents and older sibling had eventually left him behind. A ranger was called and she rescued the baby and took it to a bird rehab facility. The baby did not survive. Apparently this is common in sandhill crane families like it is in other birds such as eagles and hawks. I have seen a mother snowy egret drop the youngest of her 3 babies into the alligator pond at Gatorland so I shouldn’t be shocked but it is still sad.

If you need some cheering up after that, check out Jess’s blog. She was recently able to get pictures of a sandhill crane coming out of the egg. So cute!