If they were pissed off they at least seem polite about it, I’ve been chased by much smaller avocets while sea kayaking around Bair Island in SF Bay.

They were probably intimidated by my pickup, Tom. I was chased by Sandhills once. I think I accidentally interrupted a mating dance. I was talking on a cell phone and rounded a corner smack into a pair, and they were much less polite about it, LOL!

So how do you escape enraged avocets in a kayak? Out-row them?

Rick Perry would have shot those dang, noisy cranes—with a gun.

So how do you escape enraged avocets in a kayak? Out-row them?

Paddle until you’re far enough from their nest and they get tired…especially around that area, which is a slough, the islands are mud.

Maybe they don’t like the new Coldplay song. (But I do)

I think they’re cool. Way more exotic and interesting than the Canada Geese we have strolling across the roads. But yes, that cry is rather unnerving.

No cell phones while driving! I am soooo reporting you to the proper authorities!

I live in a designated “Endangered Species Nesting Area”, they are around here all the time. They’ll walk right up to the back door and beg for food. And yes they do have the most bizarre call ever.

Don’t know if Perry likes to shoot cranes but Texas being Texas is I believe the only state that allows them to be taken in season

Funny chickens!
.

How big are they, they look huge.  I just have Pukekos near me

I think I accidentally interrupted a mating dance.

There is a very tasteless Bob Crane joke in here someplace.

“Dagnab paparazzi! Can’t even cross the dang street without ‘em snappin’ a picture!”

Still that’s very cool. If memory serves they were close to extinction not TOO many moons ago.

Oblomova: Say it. You know you want to.

BC: try emus - 50kg of muscle & feather that can travel at 50kph, brain half the size of one of their eyeballs, and an insatiable curiosity . Fortunately they’re not aggressive (unless its a father looking after the chicks), unlike the cassowary, which we have in Far North Queensland, and which are notorious for disembowelling the over-familiar.

@ Rebecca—around 4 feet tall or so. Big bastards. Nothing like an emu, though. My guess is Sandhills weigh about the same as a cat. They’re all legs.

Weird bird calls always remind me of one thing, no matter the size of the bird or the weirdness of the call: great grandpappy was a dinosaur.