Last week, along with the clamor of red-wing blackbirds, I heard loud gargly noises coming from the slough behind our house and knew that spring had finally arrived. What was making the strange sounds? Sandhill cranes returning from their southern migration.

My husband calls them the pterodactyls, not only because of the prehistoric noise they make but because of their huge shapes when they fly overhead. Adult sandhill cranes are large and formidable, with seven-foot wingspan and standing up to five feet tall. They have long bills, long necks, and long, leathery legs.

I feel blessed to have these noisy neighbors. Like many species, sandhill cranes were close to extinction by 1900 due to settlers moving west. They were hunted for food and their beautiful feathers, their habitat converted to farmland. Luckily the Migratory Bird Treaty Act was passed in 1918, making it illegal to hunt birds that migrate, and states began to preserve areas where they live and breed. Today’s sandhill crane populations healthy, with around 15,000 of them in Minnesota.

I find sandhill cranes fascinating, especially because of their “dance.” You haven’t seen a mating ritual until you’ve watched sandhill cranes. During courtship, they bow to, flap their wings and bounce into the air. They bob up and down on one leg, touch beaks, and extend their bills up to the sky.

They’re not shy about it either. I once saw a pair dancing in a ditch just outside of Clearwater. They went about their business, completely ignoring me as I drove by.

As I was listening to the cranes’ loud calls last week, I realized there are actually a number of species living around me that have recovered from near extinction, such as trumpeter swans and bald eagles.

Like sandhill cranes, trumpeter swans were also over-hunted by settlers, with the last breeding pair in Minnesota noted in 1885. Reintroduction efforts in Minnesota began in 1966, and today they nest throughout much of the state. Even so, they’re still on the state’s threatened species list due to threats like loss of habitat and illegal shooting.

Sadly, lead poisoning from ingesting lead shot and fish sinkers is actually responsible for around half of the trumpeter swan deaths in the Midwest. Like many, I was thrilled when the huge birds first came back to this area not that long ago. Like others, I was also dismayed when it was discovered that a number of them had died after ingesting old lead shotgun pellets along the open-water channel between Clearwater Lake and Grass Lake in 2007. Although nontoxic shotgun pellets have been required for all waterfowl hunting in Minnesota since 1987, the area had long been a popular duck hunting spot and was filled with old lead shot.

I was torn when the DNR announced they would be working to discourage the swans from overwintering in that area. I didn’t want to see the beautiful birds poisoned, but I also didn’t want them to leave now that they’d finally come back.

Luckily, the trumpeter swans haven’t left. Every day, summer through fall, small flocks of the birds fly over our property, honking noisily as they head to the fields in the mornings and then back again in the evenings.

Bald eagles are another success story. I remember hearing about their decline when I was still in school, how they’d first started losing numbers due to hunting and habitat loss, which became worse after World War II due to the rampant spraying of DDT. Eagles contaminated with the pesticide began laying eggs with shells so weak they often broke during incubation or didn’t hatch at all.

In large part because of the book published by Rachel Carson in 1962, Silent Spring, DDT was banned for most uses in the U.S. in 1972. The ban, along with efforts to protect eagle habitat, brought them back from near extinction. In 2007 it was removed from the endangered species list and is again found throughout our country.

Today there are a number of bald eagle nests close to where I live. In fact, when the trees are bare of leaves, I can actually see one from my yard. The majestic birds are an amazing sight soaring the skies in search of prey.

It’s inconceivable to me that there are people who don’t support endangered species acts. I don’t ever want to wake up to a spring without the gargling of sandhill cranes, the honking of trumpeter swans, or the shrieks of bald eagles. I prefer the noise.