Things birds taught you at Los Poblanos Open Space

You’ve been hearing sandhill cranes fly over your house for three weeks, burbling all the way. All day they flew overhead in Vs.

You need to see them up close again.

You head straight for the Los Poblanos Open Space, near your old house. Your first year in New Mexico you were there every day at dawn and dusk, just to hear the cranes, see them springing up from the field into flight, see them extend to their full wingspan and glide in for a landing.

You remember waves of them launching and landing, their sound, their wings filling the sky.

When you arrive, there are dozens of geese in the field, occasionally squawking, rising and resettling. You count maybe 10 sandhill cranes.

Even with so few among so many, they stand out. They’re big, tall, a prehistoric-looking sand-gray. Something sets a few off, and they talk loudly to each other. The sound is like if a kid really got going on a porch swing whose chains hadn’t been oiled in a while. It’s a strangely comforting sound.

You never give up on a crane-photo fest somehow materializing, but with so few cranes, there are times on your walk when you notice other things instead.

You turn down a side path where you’ve had serious dusk cranespotting luck. The first thing you see: a fat roadrunner, feathers slightly disarrayed, hustling toward you, then realizing your presence and changing course.

You spot several kestrels, seeing the flash of their patterned underside and burnt orange back as they settle into trees high above you, hearing their insistent klee-klee-klee-klee-klee.

You wander until the sun sets, unable to let go of the 1 percent chance of crane liftoff. You see the Sandia Mountains turn the watermelon of their name, fade out, then turn watermelon again.

You see the golden cottonwoods glow when the light hits them just right, fade out, then glow again.

You see a flash of fading sunlight over the West Mesa that looks like it’s 10 seconds from becoming a rainbow, watch it till it fades.

You recall the bald eagle you saw there years ago, circling hundreds of feet overhead. And the spring day you walked out there after a soul-crushing two-week period of work, seeking a little respite that would help you continue. Two pheasants did a five-minute leaping faceoff in the field that you could only surmise was related to a lady pheasant.

Maybe the cranes aren’t all in Albuquerque for the winter yet. Maybe it will be another light year for cranes. Or maybe it just wasn’t your day to hang out with them.

But anytime you come here, you will be blessed by something you were not looking for, something that was also not looking for you.

Hike length: 2.5 miles

Difficulty: easy

Trail traffic: moderate

Wildlife spotted: sandhill cranes, geese, kestrels, roadrunner, crows, sparrows, flicker