Good piece in the Post about all of the media attention garnered by recent wildlife deaths. (How meta.)

I think that doomsday hysteria and speculation that causes panic instead of rational inquiry is irresponsible, but I think news reports about wildlife deaths are important because they expose people not only to natural science but to things that are happening beyond their own backyard or their own community.

Until this morning, I had no idea this had happened:

In March 1996, a blizzard hit the Platte River in Nebraska as more than half a million sandhill cranes nested at the peak of their migration. In the biggest known kill of the cranes, birds driven by high winds flew beak-first into trees and buildings during a failed attempt to outrace the blizzard. More than 2,000 died.

Poor cranes. They’re such big birds, I can’t begin to imagine the mayhem if a flock that size panicked. Or a flock any size. Big, big birds.

My mom has several families (of non-migratory Sandhill Cranes) nesting in her neighborhood and they entertain me every day while they feast on frogs and lizards in her yard. I’ve mentioned those cranes here before because they’re endlessly amusing. They also scare me half to death on a regular basis when I open the curtains and find one on the other side of the glass staring in (or, more accurately, at it’s reflection). Wakes you up better than coffee.

Last night as we recovered from our travels, we marvelled at the weird pockets of apathy in airline security, in light of thefact that the woman seated next to me on the plane pulled a swiss army knife from her pocket and cut up fruit for her son, David. The flight attendants seemed unconcerned. Husband suggested that perhaps the mother was a member of the Swiss Army, and therefore got to carry her knife. I don’t know why we’re giddy and jetlagged, we never left this timezone.

Nevertheless, I am pleased to report that David (my young neighbor on the plane) was remarkably well behaved and even offered me an oreo cookie.

Not a whole lot to report about the rest of the trip. All those sandhill crane mating dances we saw over the summer? They obviously work quite well. We saw lots of crane families strolling about the place, as each nesting apparently results in 2 eggs.

There are definitely at least 3 gators in the river by mom’s house. We know this because they’re most distinctly different sizes. We have names for them now: Lil’ Gator, Medium Gator, and Jesusmaryandjosephsomebodyclosethegaragedoorquick.

Here’s a nifty online guide to the snakes of Florida.

Randomly, here’s a great site I just found about endangered snakes and other such snakey info.

I hate snakes. Why did you let me look up those sites and look at all of those pictures?

Last night I saw the most bizarre and spectacular wildlife display ever.

I saw the mating of dance of a pair of sandhill cranes in mom’s backyard. They actually bow to each other before they start. They pogo straight up and down a good 4 feet into the air like they have spring-loaded feet. They make this noise and they swoop and they sway and they bow and then they do it again.

These things are huge (bigger than a great blue heron and much more beautiful and graceful) and they’re all over the place here. There are a few families, I see them early in the morning back by the cow pasture. Sandhill cranes are monogomous and mate for life, but there’s a lone widower male wandering about. We call him Bob Crane.

Now I understand why everyone thought it was so comical yet sad when Bob fell in love with my brother’s truck. He’d apparently dance for it in the driveway for hours.