Crex Meadows: a Birding Destination

Loacted just north of Grantsburg Wisconsin Crex Meadows Wildlife Refuge is a 90 minute drive from the Twin Cities metro and during the fall it’s a mecca for sandhill cranes and trumpeter swans. Add in some bonus waterfowl, raptors and tweety birds you can spend a few hours or more enjoying this wildlife refuge for free.

My recent trip was driven by the need to do some additional practicing with my new camera. I was attempting to get multiple sandhill cranes landing in focus and sharp at sundown. My practice didn’t exactly produce the optimal image but I’m moving in the right direction.

After driving thru a good part of the refuge I found a large group of sandhill cranes along with quite a few trumpeter swans, great egrets, some mallards, a few pie bill grebes and some unidentified shore birds on Main Dike Road. This is where I’d do my practicing. This area offered many opportunties to photograph the birds in the fading sunlight.

Sandhills were loudly milling around in the hundreds in the marsh with groups flying in from the days feeding grounds constantly. Enjoyable to witness and fun to photograph.

I also took a bit of time to photograph the trumpeter swans. If you’re into trumpeters this a a good photography spot offering small water and good late day sun angles. While working on the trumpeters a lone pie bill made it’s way feet from me. So close I couldn’t focus my camera. I even spoke to the bird asking it to please move back a bit and into the golden hour light on the calm reflecting water. The pie bill didn’t listen but it heard me after and after a while, working on points for style, the grebe moved out of sight.

If you’re looking for a day trip birding consider Crex Meadows. It’s worth it.

Additional Resources

Friends of Crex

Wisconsin DNR

Crex Meadows Imagery

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