Usually when you think of cranes on urban land, you picture
yellow tower cranes signaling the newest high rise on the horizon.
A few years ago, I had the pleasure of representing Columbia Land
Trust (CLT) when it acquired about 500 acres of bottom land inside
the city limits of Vancouver, Washington near Vancouver Lake. CLT
pictured a different type of crane on the urban horizon. The
concept for the land was to raise corn and similar crops, but leave
the harvest in place to provide feed for migrating sandhill cranes. CLT dubbed the land
"Cranes' Landing." As hoped, the site has become a
prime nesting and feeding area for the majestic migrating birds,
along with other travelers on the Pacific Flyway.
But the cranes and migratory birds are not the only beneficiaries
of operations at Cranes' Landing thanks to innovative
management. When the cranes arrive in late winter and early spring,
they need open space as well as the corn and soybeans left standing
for them to forage. Without open space, the birds cannot keep a
watch out for predators. So, CLT also plants and harvests up to
three annual crops of alfalfa, oats, and wheat on a portion of the
land, that all goes to a neighboring dairy farm for its cows. Due
to rapidly changing land use and crop preferences at farms near
urban areas, local sources of these grains are scarce, so this is a
really welcome nearby source of feed for the dairy. Once the grain
crops are harvested, this part of the field provides the open space
the cranes need, adjacent to the corn and soybeans that attract
them to Cranes' Landing.
This seems like a great example of how to benefit wildlife and
domestic animals, bird watchers and dairy farmers, from a single
parcel of urban open space. Check out this short
video from Columbia Land Trust, to see and hear the
arrival of the birds.
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