What's cool and kind of sad to watch up here is the cranes congregating and leaving. We have a couple migratory waterfowl areas set up on the edge of Fairbanks.

One group will start chorusing and getting up into the air and start catching a thermal; more and more join the group, calling in a big ruckus, then at about 1000 ft, will turn and head up the flyway towards the Alaska range.

One fall, we were working on getting the cabin off the trailer and onto its pads, when we had a group of about a dozen tundra swans take off; apparently they had been feeding resting nearby. We didn't see them due to broken snow cover, so about all we could do was straighten up and watch them take off about shoulder level, and capture the image in our minds.

Here's where I wouldn't mind taking a fall visit; lord knows I've spent enough time in the State fixing aircraft.

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