Amazing birds...
The red headed crane is practically extinct (1500) so it was a real honour to be able to see them. The cages sucked big time though.
There are wild ones in this reserve - three flew so close to Chris I thought they were going to take him away! - but most of them are domesticated. I was interested to see them train the little baby cranes exactly as my Mom did the geese when I was a kid...
So they are living, and breeding well, but they are human-acclimatised. And at 230pm every day, they fly for the tourists - one lap of the lake and they return to the cages (notwithstanding me screaming GO! GO! at them).
We missed the minibus back to town (turns out the bus leaves when full, not to a timed schedule) but the parking lot dude arranged for us to hop on the (much more lux, airconditioned) Worker's bus hauling the staff home...
so we had time to kill while the park closed and got to see...a huge motorcade with black SUVs and police escort roll up for private tour of the reserve. And I note that they didn't have to walk in, either. And of course, they got a private fly by.
It was glorious. All the other cranes were let out at once, and they flew right to me and Chris all alone on our end of the lake...so close I could have leapt up and touched a rare bird with an eight foot wingspan.
