“As the sun rises over the mountains in a peachy orb, the cool air erupts with crane music. One group after another flaps heavily into the air and the cranes fly past me in straggling lines, heading east.” 

This story is a portrait of early fall in Montana’s Helena Valley—the third and final episode in the Lake Helena series about getting to know this particular place over time. It’s a story of sandhill cranes, Baird’s sandpipers, thunderstorms and waves, and the wonder and music of fall bird migration. 

The podcast includes lots of ambient sounds I recorded. At Lake Helena, we hear sandhill cranes (Antigone canadensis), marsh wrens (Cistothorus palustris), common yellowthroats (Geothlypis trichas), red-winged blackbirds (Agelaius phoeniceus), Virginia rails (Rallus limicola), Baird’s sandpipers (Calidris bairdii), greater yellowlegs (Tringa melanoleuca), and waves. We also hear a post-breeding red-winged blackbird flock I recorded in Granite County, Montana in August 2024. Finally, from the Helena Valley Regulating Reservoir, we hear Canada geese (Branta canadensis), sandhill cranes, ring-billed gulls (Larus delawarensis), and a Caspian tern (Hydroprogne caspia).

You can find the illustrated transcript of this story here: https://wildwithnature.com/2024/09/01/sandhill-cranes-helena/
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