Local birders have been surprised and delighted to spot at least one pair of Sandhill cranes in Norfolk this summer. This is not a bird usually found in the Northeast; they breed all across Canada and into Alaska, as well as in large swaths of the Midwest and the Intermountain West. According to bird enthusiast Susannah Wood, Sandhill cranes (Antigone canadensis) have been extending their breeding range eastward into New England from the Great Lakes for many years and have become an increasingly familiar sight around Norfolk. This year, she reports, a pair in North Norfolk produced a colt, as the young cranes are known. A bird of wetlands, meadows and prairies, the Sandhill is pale gray, stands about four feet tall and has a distinctive red cap, slender neck, and a rolling, rattling call. They are also, apparently, not easily phased by small aircraft.