Sandhill cranes in the metro?

[MNmikew]

I saw two of them in a yard in Blaine this past weekend near the Anoka Airport. Those things are HUGE.

[Dan Thiem]

We were down by Kellogg near the Weaver bottoms on Saturday and saw five of them flying very low to the ground and they landed where there was a couple more. They are as big as ostrich's. They also have a very cool sound!

[Steve Foss]

One of the strangest things I remember was shoveling snow during a Halloween blizzard in central North Dakota more than 10 years ago. Above the howling of the wind, there were sandhill cranes flying over the little town I lived in. They were only 100 feet or so above the ground, and their rattling call came through the howling of the blizzard wind. I leaned on my shovel, looked up at their ghostly shapes made blurry by snow, and wondered just how cold it had to be up there in the teeth of the blizzard. I marveled at the hardiness of those cranes.