Sandhill cranes — Sebastian, Florida

Sandhill cranes walk through Sebastian because its mowed lawns, swales and ponds sit beside wetland and prairie habitat the birds need.

Sandhill cranes walk Sebastian streets because the city puts open grass, shallow water and food side by side, close to some of the best crane habitat in Indian River County. The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission says Florida sandhill cranes are present in many urban areas, including golf courses, airports and suburban subdivisions, due in part to the rapid development of their native habitat. Sebastian has all three: the Sebastian Highlands subdivision, a municipal golf course and the Sebastian Municipal Airport, each with acres of mowed grass.

The FWC explains the attraction. Cranes are drawn to open settings with mowed grass and to foods such as acorns, earthworms, mole crickets and turf grubs. A Sebastian Highlands lawn bordered by a drainage swale offers the same mix a wet prairie does: short vegetation to watch for predators, soft ground to probe and water nearby. The birds stand almost 4 feet tall and announce themselves with bugling or rattling calls, which is why a pair crossing Barber Street or a family probing a front yard is hard to miss.

The cranes seen around Sebastian come from nearby conservation land, including the North Sebastian Conservation Area and the St. Sebastian River Preserve.

Florida sandhills need two kinds of land. According to the FWC crane research page, they use shallow marsh wetlands and lake edges for nesting, foraging and roosting, and uplands with low vegetation such as ranchland and dry prairie for foraging and loafing. The protected land around Sebastian supplies both.

North of the city, Indian River County lists sandhill cranes at the North Sebastian Conservation Area, about 407 acres bought between 1996 and 1999, where flatwoods, scrub, freshwater marshes and wet prairies sit in a mosaic. West of the city, Florida State Parks counts sandhill cranes among the more common sightings at the St. Sebastian River Preserve, which the Great Florida Birding and Wildlife Trail lists at 21,628 acres of longleaf pine forest, scrub, cypress domes and strand swamp, with a south entrance on WW Ranch Road in Sebastian.

Between those blocks the county maintains a corridor. The Sebastian Scrub Conservation Area on Schumann Drive, about half a mile north of Barber Street, is described by Indian River County as part of a larger wildlife corridor that includes the 179-acre Sebastian Stormwater Park, owned by the St. Johns River Water Management District, and the county's 163-acre Sebastian Harbor Conservation Area. Cranes moving among these tracts cross the residential streets in between.

The Sebastian Highlands became crane country when its 1950s street and swale grid replaced flatwoods with open lawns and shallow drainage water.

The layout of the city made room for them. The City of Sebastian reports that in the late 1950s General Development Corporation designed and built the street and drainage infrastructure for approximately 15,000 single-family home sites, served by a system of canals, ditches and swales that carry stormwater to the St. Sebastian River. Those grassy swales along every street and the retention ponds near them hold shallow water after rain, and the grass between them is mowed short, the conditions FWC describes as attractive to cranes.

The FWC notes that wetlands are often drained and open uplands bulldozed for roads, shopping centers and subdivisions, and that some cranes remain in or move to urbanized areas anyway. The Florida Museum reported on January 12, 2024 that recent studies show populations increasing because birds are using suburban areas like golf courses and residential neighborhoods. In Sebastian, where much of the original flatwoods became house lots on the GDC grid, the cranes that stayed adapted to the lawns.

The FWC research program tracks that shift. In 2017 the agency's Fish and Wildlife Research Institute began marking adult cranes with cellular GPS transmitters and color bands in suburbs and developed areas, and tagging others in rural and conservation lands, to compare survival and habitat use along the urban gradient. A crane with colored leg bands seen in a Sebastian yard can be reported to the FWC online.

Most sandhill cranes in Sebastian are year-round Florida residents, joined in winter by migrating greater sandhill cranes from the north.

Most of the year they are residents. The FWC describes the Florida sandhill crane as a non-migratory subspecies ranging from southeastern Georgia to the Everglades, with a current population estimate of around 4,600 birds, and state-listed as Threatened. The Florida Museum adds that each winter about 25,000 migrating greater sandhill cranes join the resident birds, so crane numbers around Sebastian, Fellsmere and the St. Johns marshes rise in the cooler months.

Families are visible in spring. UF/IFAS Extension describes Florida sandhills as about four feet tall with a wingspan exceeding six feet and a weight of about ten pounds, nesting in shallow water in late winter to early spring. The female lays one to two eggs, both parents incubate for about 29 to 32 days, and the young, called colts, stay with their parents for up to 10 months. That is why a pair walking a Sebastian street with a tan, fuzzy colt is common in spring and early summer, and why the same family may stay in a neighborhood for most of a year.

The 1974 threatened listing, according to the Florida Museum, followed the development of preferred habitat and deaths from vehicle strikes, two pressures that still apply on the roads of Indian River County.

Feeding sandhill cranes is illegal in Sebastian under Florida rule 68A-4.001(6), and harassing the threatened birds is also prohibited.

Feeding is illegal. The FWC made intentional feeding of sandhill cranes illegal in 2002, and Florida Administrative Code rule 68A-4.001(6) states that the intentional feeding of sandhill cranes is prohibited. FWC counts spilled bird seed under feeders as accidental feeding and lists the reasons for the rule: fed cranes lose their fear of people, may approach closely or peck, walk across roads to reach yards, face more danger from dogs and cats, and narrow their normally diverse diet. FWC also notes that many sandhill cranes are killed each year on Florida roads, a risk on Sebastian streets where families cross between lawns and swales.

Property damage has a known cause. FWC says cranes that scratch windows, screens or shiny cars are probably reacting to their reflections as territorial rivals. The agency's suggestions for Sebastian homeowners are to cover or move cars, temporarily cover the windows or screens being struck, and run a string on stakes about 2.5 feet high as an exclusion line around damaged screens. It also asks residents to accept some lawn digging, since the cranes are removing mole crickets and beetle grubs. Harassing a Florida sandhill crane is illegal because of its threatened status, and FWC takes reports at 888-404-FWCC.