A Celebration of Sandhill Cranes

Dramatic changes occur during each of the four seasons of the year on this 37,000-acre Pleistocene lake bed, the most incredible being the arrival of thousands of sandhill cranes from as far away as Alaska

It's dark when I arrive at Tucson International Airport at 6 A.M., but out on the tarmac Sandy Lanham, our pilot, flashlight in hand, is already finishing a preflight inspection of her Cessna 182. "All set," she says, "just as soon as Jack gets here." A few minutes later, Jack Dykinga lumbers out of the Executive Terminal, hauling a load of cameras, lenses, and assorted gear bags. We strap down the equipment and ourselves, Jack up front beside Sandy, I in back, and then we're speeding down the runway to lift off into the gray dawn, heading east toward Willcox. Sandy is sole proprietor of Environmental Flying Services as well as chartering agent, ground crew, and chief pilot, all rolled into one. Of her 40-year-old Cessna 182 she says, "It may be the oldest 182 still flying anywhere in the world." She's proud of that, and proud too of the work to which she puts her airplane. And Sandy's smooth, artful handling of the nimble single-engine four-seater is perfect for the low-altitude, throttled-down aerial surveys that enable environmental researchers to gather in a couple of days an amount of data that would take weeks on the ground. Recently she piloted a Mexico City biologist over the northern Sea of Cortes to tally vaquitas, small endangered porpoises that inhabit the gulf waters. This January day the job is closer to home. Sandy, Jack, and I are flying over Willcox Playa to shoot aerial photographs of sandhill cranes that annually migrate in winter from as far away as Alaska to roost on the Playa, a 37,000-acre sprawl of alkali flats south of the town of Willcox. Following a period of seasonal rains, this 50to 60-square-mile dry lake bed, a remnant of a once vast Pleistocene lake, is covered with shallow ponds, each only a few millimeters deep. We'll arrive early, just at sunrise, when the cranes leave their roosts to feed in nearby grain fields. Southwest of Willcox, near the Cochise Power Plant, we spot some larger ponds. Lightly skimmed with ice, they are dull pewter in the gray light. We don't want to spook the birds before there's enough light for photos, so Sandy throttles back, and we circle lazily, waiting for the sun to crest the Chiricahua Mountains. I focus my binoculars on the ponds. In the dim half-light, I make out hundreds of long-legged cranes, their white-cheeked faces upturned, eyeing us warily as we drift overhead. Soon the sun vaults above a distant ridge, and the big birds spread their seven-foot wingspans to lift off the pon ratcheting of camera shutter and automatic film-advance as Jack triggers frame after frame of 35mm, punctuated by terse intercom dialog between photographer and pilot. Jack: "A bit lower and a little west on the next pass, okay? Sandy: "I'll try, but I don't want to risk hitting a bird." In the backseat, bundled to my eyeballs in wool cap, goose-down jacket, and insulated mittens, my job is to prop open Jack's window. Otherwise I keep still and watch. I'm awestruck by the big birds flying in loose formation over the ponds while sunlight fills the sky on this desert winter morning. And full of admiration for the quiet skill of the two pros - pilot and photographer - working up front.

Willcox Playa

It's early June. The sky is cloudless, ice-blue. Cocooned inside the air-conditioned cab of my pickup, I'm driving alongside Willcox Playa, returning from a few days hiking in the high meadows of the Chiricahua Mountains, where just now Rocky Mountain irises bloom. The surface of the Playa shimmers. Water? A mirage?

It's hot. Dust devils, whirlwinds generated by the sudden rise of superheated air, swirl across unrelieved flats. I flip off the A/C switch and roll down the window. Instantly the cab fills with suffocating, dry air. Yes, hot, too hot. Quickly, I crank the window closed. Sparse clumps of sacaton grass sprout randomly along the dry lake's margins where no rain has fallen in months. A solitary vulture circles overhead. The Playa seems lifeless, a wasteland.

The cranes of winter, flying in tens of thousands, are unimaginable now. Yet, by the middle of July, in most years, summer monsoon thunderstorms build over the mountains and spill into the valleys. Soon a veneer of shallow water covers the Playa. And magic happens. Urged by just enough water to sustain their life cycles, millions of tiny crustaceans, hatched from eggs estivating beneath the cracked and parched earth for perhaps years, suddenly appear to feed on algae and microscopic organisms, also roused by summer rains. Then, as if in response to word put out on some mysterious bird hotline, sand-pipers, killdeers, avocets, and other longlegged waders flock to the Playa to glut on the tadpole shrimps, fairy shrimps, and clam shrimps.

But this extravagant burgeoning of life is short-lived. The rains stop. In a few weeks the water evaporates, the birds vanish. Rapidly the ephemeral moisture disappears, leaving exquisite nodules, shells, and geometric patterns in the Playa's alkaline soils. Once again the Playa becomes a scene of apparent desolation, devoid of life for months on end.

It was this ostensible lifelessness that led to the U.S. Army's use of the Playa as a bombing and gunnery range during World War II. When the military stopped bombing and strafing, well after the end of the war, the Playa was a trash dump of abandoned equipment and live ammunition. Although detonation experts blew up a lot of these munitions after the war, signs still warn of the dangers of half-buried unexploded bombs and shells, which are sometimes discovered by hikers and four-wheelers.

By the end of September, in most years, fall arrives on the Playa. Not that you'd notice much. At midday thermometer digits still sometimes flirt with the century mark. But nightfall comes earlier and with it cooler air draining from the heights of the Dragoon, Dos Cabezas, and Chiricahua mountains, sending the mercury plummeting by 50° F. or more. Once during the first week of October, Jack Dykinga and I camped on the Playa. By day we frolicked in shorts, T-shirts, and sandals in 90-degree weather. When the sun disappeared behind the Dragoons, we pulled long-sleeved shirts and wool socks from our duffels. Less than an hour later, we rummaged again for added layers of clothing. Soon we fled to the warmth of our goose-down sleeping bags, where we lay talking, watching our breath vaporize and waft off toward icy stars. In the early morning I awoke, cold, to discover my sleeping bag layered with rime.I checked the zip-tab thermometer on my daypack. Twenty-eight, it read, more than 60° F. below the daytime high. The changing of the seasons brings an al-tered precipitation pat-tern, with moisture arriving via broader more westerly weath-er fronts from the Pa-cific. These rains, less violent than those produced by summer monsoons, often last a few days. Gradually, sheet flooding again begins to spread across Willcox Playa, just in time for the arrival of the sandhill cranes in midto late October. Although sandhill cranes are not actu-ally waterfowl, they need the protection of shallow and unap-proachable wetlands for roosting sites. It's the presence of water and plentiful grain in nearby agricultural fields that brings them to Willcox Playa in greater numbers each year. By January more than 12,000 cranes along with mal-lards, Mexican ducks, and northern pin-tails have migrated to these ephemeral wetlands.

Willcox Playa

Early February. By the middle of the month, maybe sooner, depending on how they read the signals that prompt their leave-taking, the big birds will have flown to their nesting grounds in the north. Already there are fewer than when we were here only a couple of weeks ago. We bank and circle again. "Can you make another pass over that last pond and throttle down a little?" says Jack Dykinga to pilot Sandy Lanham.

WHEN YOU GO

Although Willcox Playa is an attraction in all seasons, the Wings Over Willcox Sandhill Crane Celebration is held each year in January. Guided tours are sponsored by the Willcox Chamber of Commerce. Seminars, field trips, workshops, displays, and video presentations are also part of the celebration. To inquire, call the Chamber at (800) 200-2272.

Backlit by the sun, hundreds of sandhill cranes gather in the water-filled Playa.

"I was already at power off, full flaps," Sandy answers. "Any slower and we'll be on the ground."

Jack does a quick double-take, real quick, for he's holding onto maybe 20 pounds of camera and zoom lens stick-ing out of the window on his side of the airplane. "Oh well, I guess it's a wrap," he says.

With that, Sandy levels the Cessna 182 and pushes the throttle forward. We climb to about 5,000 feet and ease back to cruis-ing speed for our return flight to Tucson. Below, a long S-shaped skein of cranes passes beneath the airplane, heading the other way toward the fields to gorge on corn, fattening and storing energy for their long flight north.

Travel Guide: For detailed information about the great variety of places to travel in Arizona, we recommend the guidebook Travel Arizona and Arizona: Land of Contrasts, a video by Bill Leverton that offers a story-teller's perspective of the state. Both will direct you to exciting destinations and out-of-the-way attractions. Our Arizona Road Atlas, featuring maps of 27 cities, mileage charts, and points of interest, also is a neces-sity for travelers. To order, telephone toll-free (800) 543-5432. In the Phoenix area or out-side the U.S., call (602) 258-1000.

Tom Dollar knew the sandhill crane's call before he ever saw one. Early one morning, many years ago, he heard a far-off bugling that sent him searching in his bird books for ka-rooo, ka-rooo, ka-rooo. Jack Dykinga has been visiting the Willcox Playa to watch the sandhill cranes for 10 years.