I hear the note of a bobolink concealed in the top of an apple tree behind me. [...] He is just touching the strings of his theorbo, his glassichord, his water organ, and one or two notes globe themselves and fall in liquid bubbles from his teeming throat.  It is as if he touched his harp within a vase of liquid melody, and when he lifted it out, the notes fell like bubbles from the trembling strings.  Methinks they are the most liquidly sweet and melodious sounds I ever heard.
– Henry David Thoreau

Off to North Dumfries this morning for grassland species.  Along Shouldice Road, Savannah Sparrows seemed to be on every fencepost, with a few Grasshopper Sparrows hidden among them.  Bobolinks were also numerous, perched on tussocks of grass or hovering overhead in full song.  After a bit of waiting I was even able to locate the Sandhill Cranes, although they were rather distant.  Not surprising; they are, after all, my nemesis bird.

Cranes carry themselves in quite a different manner than the equally long-necked herons.  Whereas the latter will wade about with necks held in a graceful, angular s-curve, cranes keep their heads stiffly aloft, like a Brontosaurus from the pages of an old grade-school dinosaur book.  Fitting, perhaps, that they should evoke such an image: Sandhills are one of the oldest extant bird species on the planet.