Guest Article: An Unlikely Quad

A story about making friends with humans and the Sandhills.

It’s January 15, 2022 and it’s raining quite hard. The cranes don’t care, and neither do I - it’s my first bird festival.

I am joined by my boyfriend, Gabriel, and we attend a presentation on the rehabilitation of Whooping Cranes. The auditorium was filled with bird enthusiasts, including one Arianna Remmel. I happened to strike up a conversation with them, and it ended with an exchange of phone numbers. Little did we all know; the Festival of the Cranes would hard-launch three individuals’ birding hobby.

To this day, Ari, Gabriel, and I remain good friends and have visited many bird festivals together all over the United States. Ari is now a prominent birder and recently became an eBird reviewer for the state of Arkansas. Gabriel’s life list is growing exponentially and is involved in MTOS (Memphis Tennesse Ornithological Society). As for me, I quickly trapped a good portion of our friends into birding, and I love making bird art. This year was our third friend-iversary, which we celebrated among the sandhills on the front lawn. Since our first Festival of the Cranes, the three of us have snagged many of our lifers in Decatur and on the refuge, including the Whoopers, Red-breasted Nuthatch, and a Palm Warbler – just to name a few! Even though we hit the hot spots for birding when visiting Wheeler, what keeps us coming back is the cranes.

When I try to lure people to Wheeler Refuge and the FOC, I love to say it “sounds like a thousand dinosaurs.” The sound of the Sandhill Cranes is what hooked me. At Wheeler, I feel connected to nature because I can’t escape it – you can leave the presence of the cranes, but you will still hear them. You can go out to the middle of Decatur, but there are still flyovers. Like my first (and also latest) visit, you can walk out into heavy rain, and there they are. And that is my favorite quality of FOC. It draws people in with the promise of hikes, lectures, and exhibits, but the ultimate experience is the inescapable presence of the sandhills. You look at them, hear them, think of them, and go home and think of them some more.

If it were not for the Festival of the Cranes, none of these memories would have happened. I will value each one forever. Thanks to the Friends of Wheeler National Wildlife Refuge, I have gained a lifelong hobby, a lifelong friend, and a lifelong love of the Sandhills.

Gabrielle LeBeau - Festival of the Cranes guest (and birding enthusiast!)