This stained adult Sandhill Crane is currently visiting some soy fields near St. Louis.
“Our ability to perceive quality in nature begins, as in art, with the pretty. It expands through successive stages of the beautiful to values as yet uncaptured by language. The quality of cranes lies, I think, in this higher gamut, as yet beyond the reach of words.”
-Aldo Leopold
“A Sand County Almanac And Sketches Here and There”
“Stained Adult Sandhill Crane”
A Thousand Acres of Silphiums 
Hi Bill, I had no idea that sandhill cranes visited MO. The pic is just wonderful – what a magnificent bird! Thanks so much for sharing this with us. Kathleen
Beautiful!