sandhill cranes

This is copied from a double page photograph that heads an article titled "the Birds" published in Arizona Highways for October 2016. I have it right here beside me. The photograph and statement is by John Sherman, the portfolio of birds is edited by Jeff Kida.

The photographs also include a handsome mottled quail, makes you think of hunting and of dinner, an orange oriole, a trogon that looks like a colorful parakeet, and a Steller's jay that is not blue and looks to be hopping straight up, a full page photo of a double crested cormorant without any crests and opening its mouth like it's yawning, a green heron leaping from the water, a very cool full page photo of three baby great horned owls with their nest in a saguaro, a double page photo of a California condor with its beak tucked into its chest and that all you see due to the fog, a Harris hawk landing on a branch, and a calliope hummingbird that looks like it spit up spaghetti sauce splattered from its mouth all over its bib.

Inspire'n. I love those cranes and there's a million of them it looks like. Let's scratch out a picture.

A couple of houses ago I had the ugliest closet doors that you ever saw comprised of four plain panels. You pulled on the knobs and the panels folded following two tracks. I laid there in bed and wondered how I could turn them into something attractive and decided light quilts that snapped on would work. I decided the design will be cranes as Japanese paint them, but mine would be merely outlined in stitches. But I never got around to it before I moved. But I still love these cranes. Mine would have longer necks. Ridiculously long necks.