With sightings of two of the

smallest and one of the largest species of bird this winter, it has been

one of Peachtree City's more interesting seasons of recent years, according

to birding enthusiast David Cree.

Cree managed to photograph

eight sandhill cranes grazing in the grasses not far from his home near

the northeasternmost corner of Lake Kedron just last weekend. While there,

he flushed a sedge wren and captured it, too, on film.

The wren is probably the bird

that was included for the first time ever in Peachtree City reports to

the National Audubon Society's 2000 Christmas Bird Count, since it was

seen in the same area, opines CBC coordinator Brock Hutchins of Fayetteville.

Described in the new "Sibley

Guide to Birds" as a secretive inhabitant of areas with dense grass

and scattered bushes, the sedge wren is smaller and less brightly marked

than the familiar Carolina wren. The one he shot stayed in plain view,

scolding for many minutes, Cree reported.

The sandhills are tall waders

and, to the inexperienced eyes of local golf cart riders passing them

unawares, may have appeared to be great blue herons. Herons are generally

solitary, however; sandhill cranes typically congregate in flocks of 100

or more. A flock of about 145 was reported in the 1989 CBC, a year when

sandhills were seen frequently overflying both Fayette and Coweta counties.

Those Cree reported to the

Rare Bird Alert of the Georgia Ornithological Society may have dropped

out of a flock passing through, en route to or from winter grounds in

Florida, the Sibley Guide suggests. In any case, they were gone in a matter

of hours, Cree said, but not before he snapped their picture among Lake

Kedron's winter-resident Canada goose flock.

A rufous hummingbird, far from

her breeding grounds of western North America, was banded here last month.

For the latest in unusual bird

sightings in Georgia, the GOS "hotline" site is updated once

a week or more often, at www.gos.org/rbas.html#ga .