IT’S DARK and raining on the Canadian prairie. Most sane people are still tucked in bed or just putting on a pot of coffee. But the group of us getting soaked to the bone setting out decoys and brushing in A-frame blinds in a cut pea field are all certifiable. We’re jonesing for cupped wings, and the only way to get our fix is to wake up before the ducks and geese fly from their roost waters to these grain fields to feed.
The morning is full of the usual anticipation, plus an extra helping. That’s because we’re hunting one of the oldest birds in the world: the sandhill crane, a flying, 4-foot-tall velociraptor with a wingspan of up to 7 feet. At first light their distinctive purrs break the prairie stillness, and we are all now very awake. Their razor-sharp talons dwarf the spurs of any 3-year-old tom. Sandhills have long and pointed beaks, and they aren’t afraid to spear you or your retriever with them.
The first cranes glide into the decoys. Some of us have never hunted them before, but even we can tell that once the sandhills commit, there’s no backpedaling. They are big and clumsy and can’t gain altitude fast enough as we raise our shotguns in unison. Most of the birds tumble from the sky in a tangle of wings and legs, but two sail into the peas. Our guide, Dusty Brown, doesn’t hesitate to stomp through the muddy Saskatchewan stubble toward one of them. The bird spouts a vicious hiss and spreads its wings.
But Brown gives the crane a swift boot right in the chest and it flops back. He finishes it quickly. He has to get the crane to the ground to kill it and protect himself and his Lab, Briley. The second, less experienced crane guide is far more tentative, dancing around the second sandhill like a nervous boxer in the opening round of a fight.
“The first time one stood up and hissed at me, I did the same thing,” says Brown, who has since hunted cranes in