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Articles

Vol. 16 No. 3 (1985)

NOTES: A RECORD OF PRETERRITORIAL COPULATION BY SANDHILL CRANES

Submitted
September 12, 2025
Published
July 1, 1985

Abstract

The Malheur-Harney Lakes Basin, Harney Co., Oregon, is an important traditional spring stopover area for the Pacific Flyway Population of Lesser Sandhill Cranes (Grus canadensis canadensis). Located in southeast Oregon, mowed and flooded meadows south and east of Burns provide excellent feeding, loafing, and roosting habitat for a majority of the 20,000 to 23,000 cranes in the population (Littlefield and Thompson, Proc. Crane Workshop 3:288-294, 1981). Individual birds remain in the basin from several days to a few weeks before continuing north to nesting regions in southwest Alaska.

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