Sandhill cranes visit my yard

Today while my daughter in law was here to dig up some hostas, we noticed a visitor in the front yard.

We've seen sandhill cranes back by the pond but never in our front yard and never with a baby.  B and I noticed that they were walking toward the road so we intercepted them along the fence row and they headed back to the pond.

Later in day as I was cutting back the climbing rose bushes I turned around to find them out by the big hosta bed.  They then walked back towards the house and across the driveway behind my vehicle in the circle drive.

 

 I tried my best to get some decent photos but I'm not the best when it comes to photo taking using the zoom on a moving target.

They are quite tall with a red stripe across the area around the eye.  A couple of times when they thought I was too close, the mother let out a loud screech.

This year has been quite the bird year for us.  We've seen quite a few hummingbirds, and indigo bunting, 2 orioles, and numerous woodpeckers.  My neighbor said he saw a flock of rose breasted grosbeaks.  It's great to see all these birds but so far very very very few honey bees.