A golf course in Sewickley Township had an unusual guest from out west this week: a 5- or 6-foot tall sandhill crane, a rare find this time of year in southwestern Pennsylvania.
Guests at The Madison Club started noticing the tall, gray-feathered crane with a red cap above its eyes earlier this week.
"I had my back to the window and I saw the guys at the bar making a fuss, like, 'There it is, there it is!'" said David Luehm, 66, of North Huntingdon, who posted a picture of the crane as it watched him eat dinner Wednesday night. "I thought, is this thing escaped from somewhere? It didn't seem very afraid of people; it would just slowly walk away on those long, crane-y legs."
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Jan Merlino, an exotic animal expert for the Westmoreland County Animal Response Team, answered a call from nearby residents who'd spotted the bird and went out to confirm that it was a sandhill crane .
This lanky bird breeds in the northwestern part of the state and is typically found in marshes, fallow grasslands and agricultural fields, according to Brian Shema, director of operations for the Audubon Society of Western Pennsylvania.
"When we see these oddball occurrences, it's usually a non-breeding bird that is roaming," said Shema.
Although a golf course is not traditional crane habitat, it is a wide open space resembling fields.
The birds are not shy and will frequent areas where there are people, Shema added.
Merlino had heard reports that there had been sightings of another sandhill crane in the Derry area last year, but never saw it himself. Merlino and the CART team encouraged people to not to feed, bother or get too close to the bird.
Sandhill cranes are found across northern North America and the southeastern United States, according to the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. The birds gather in immense flocks in the winter in Bosque del Apache, New Mexico, and Anahuac National Wildlife Refuge, Texas.
Matthew Santoni is a Tribune-Review staff writer. Reach him at 724-836-6660, msantoni@tribweb.com or on Twitter @msantoni.
