The strange customers that almost were
Today at work we had a pair of sandhill cranes wandering around outside. (For anyone not in North America, or perhaps in an area that doesn't happen to be a crane hangout, they are big gray birds, as tall as a small child, and according to Wikipedia "the Florida subspecies...seems little afraid of human approach"--well, THAT's for sure!)

They kept coming up to the windows, where the male would proceed to rap his beak like he wanted our attention.

At one point they walked right up to the sliding door and he tapped on it like he wanted in. It looked so funny and so--human! Then the door suddenly flings open and both cranes turn and scurry a few feet away like naughty children who got caught at something, their feathers vaguely ruffled.

But they quickly regained their composure and strolled off to go dig up some of the landscaping across the street.

Too cute!!