This spring, here in Michigan, something quite unexpected happened. It started out as it always does in early April with the sandhill cranes preparing their nest. A week later, they laid their first egg then a second egg appeared. The devoted parents incubated both eggs and in early May the first egg hatched. This is where the unexpected turn occurred.
Much to everyone’s surprise, this first chick was the gosling of a Canada goose! The parents adopted this gosling and cared for it as if it were their own.
A few days later, the Sandhilll Crane colt hatched. Under the watchful eyes of the adult cranes, the two chicks bonded and developed further with the adults teaching both chicks how to find worms and others typical crane food.
At first – the Baby Goose was like… “you want me to eat what?!?” You see baby geese don’t eat worms and bugs they eat duckweed and plants! It was all very confusing to the baby goose.
The Sandhill Crane Colt shows the Gosling how it’s done.
The baby goose and mother have a long talk about things.
He also had a discussion with his brother about the situation.
But in the end, the little guy caught on pretty well! Everyone was so proud!
It is now Mid-June and we are happy to report that the entire family is doing very well.
Good Luck and Good Light!
Steve and Nicole
What beautiful essay! As always, your pics are fantastic! Thank you so much for sharing!
Love you both.????
Wonderful story and photos!
Aww I would have loved an updated pic of the family. This is adorable!
We were fascinated reading this story… the images are wonderful! How lucky you both were to discover this event! Thank you for posting it.
I loved this story. What a fantastic photographer you are. I love looking at your website. Especially your macro work. Thank you for the beauty you bring into our world thru your camera. Pat
Awesome post!
Steve’s work is phenomenal. I am not a photographer and know very little about photography, but I am a colored pencil artist that began drawing about 20 months ago. Do you ever give permission to use your images as reference photos for artists. It might be kind of cool to have an exhibition with your photographs and a colored pencil rendering of it next to one another. Just a thought.
You should make a children’s book out of this story. So beautiful! Great work!
I believe this has happened in our yard. The cranes are too far away to see for sure, but one baby is definitely more yellow in color and shorter in height. I’ve seen them all together for about 5 days now, and I hope they stay together, taking care of the gosling.
Hi! Something similar happened in Wisconsin. Do you know if the gosling ended up alright/eating more typical gosling food / going in the water? That’s the biggest question folks have around Madison where they saw cranes raising a gosling.