Spring Break II

Every now and then on spring break, you end up annoying the wildlife. Language Czarina inter- rupted some sandhill cranes at breakfast for this one, from a north- western trip in 2005.

Spring break with the cranes is actually cooler than it appears from a single photo. Apparently, if you're a sandhill crane anywhere in the western hemisphere and your last name begins with L through Z, you're obliged to fly through a chokepoint about 10 miles wide near Kearney, Neb., when you go north in March. So rather than a couple birds noshing in a former cornfield, the modal image is, like, hundreds of millions of red-eyed gray monsters wandering around going "Dude! Spring break!"