A Tennessee Stopover for Sandhill Cranes

The dead of winter may not seem like the best time to attend an outdoor performance. However, for those willing to brave the January chill, the stars of the Hiwassee Wildlife Refuge promise one spectacular show. 

Starting in late October, some 12,000 to 20,000 eastern sandhill cranes all but take over the refuge’s 6,000 acres, the “primeval” calls of these four-foot birds filling the air. “It’s an overwhelming experience to see them in such numbers up close and to hear their voice,” says Mime Barnes, wildlife information and education specialist for the Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency in Crossville.

As migratory birds, sandhill cranes make their summer homes in the north, from Alaska through much of Canada’s tundra and down into Michigan, Minnesota, and Wisconsin. Come autumn, most of them make their exodus toward the warmer, southern regions of Mexico and U.S. states like Texas, Mississippi, and Florida. 

Most migratory birds know their path at birth through genetic coding. Crane species, on the other hand, must learn their route from generation to generation, explains Kevin Calhoon, the Tennessee Aquarium’s assistant curator of forests. The eastern sandhill cranes have been making their migration from the Great Lakes region to Florida for tens of thousands of years. That was until some of them discovered corn in eastern Tennessee.

The Hiwassee River spans three states beginning in Towns County, Georgia, and flowing northwest through North Carolina and across the Tennessee border. The river ends its 147-mile journey at the confluence with the Tennessee River in Meigs County, the juncture creating a wide expanse of marshes, shoreline, and shallow river that “provides a fantastic environment for wildlife, especially migratory waterfowl,” says Barnes. 

Seeing a conservation opportunity for both land and animal, the Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency helped deem the confluence a public land around the 1960s, naming it the Hiwassee Wildlife Refuge. Since then, the agency has been planting crops such as corn to attract waterfowl. Over the years, ducks, swans, and geese discovered the crops and have grown to over 5,000 individual birds today. Other birds also found the plethora of food and space and lack of predation suited their taste. Over 100 great blue herons, 1,500 gulls, and half a dozen bald eagles now take up winter or permanent residency at the refuge. 

“There’s no place in Tennessee where you can see so many big birds in one spot,” says Calhoon. Sporadic and a few at first, by the 1990s, thousands of sandhill cranes turned the initial pit stop into the eastern population’s biggest meeting grounds outside of Florida.  

Sandhill crane numbers reach their peak at the Hiwassee Wildlife Refuge in early January, making it the ideal time to visit the area to see the birds. While the island is closed from November 15 through the end of February, an observational deck across the river is open year-round and provides an unobstructed, 360-degree view that stretches far over flat farmland and marshland. 

The best up-close view is from the water.

By the end of March, most of the sandhill cranes will leave the refuge for their northward journey to breed, the flocks cutting huge Vs across the sky.