Whooping Crane Family--Part IV

In the first days of its life, a whooping crane chick quickly attaches to and follows his parents through an instinct called imprinting. But following is an effort that takes practice.
A lot of stumbling takes place until the chick develops strength and awareness of both his body and his environment. And the parents do their best to help.

While they are watching out for the chick, foraging and bringing him food, they spread their toes and use their feet to flatten the grasses around the chick's path. ICF biologists at the exhibit speculated that this grass-pressing behavior helps the parents keep up with the chick in the tall grass and enables them to better see predators. It also enables the chick to move about more freely.

Brian Johns, Whooping Crane Coordinator for the Candian Wildlife Services confirmed for me that this behavior is also observed in the wild. Wild birds build a platform for their nest in the water so that the chick can get out of the water but still be away from the shore and predators. But since the wild birds are constantly on the move there is also no extensive grass pressing or platform building in any one area.
As you can see in the chick video posted on October 7, within a couple of days the chick has gained strength and coordination and follows his parents with more ease...

and is even running...and flapping his wings!

Related links: whooping crane ultralight migration, Operation Migration. A special thanks to the International Crane Foundation for the opportunity to view this family. For other posts on the Whooping Crane Family click here.

Whooping Crane Family--Part I

It was this series of sandhill crane notecard images that prompted me to ask the question, "Is there any place on earth I could view and photograph a whooping crane caring for its chick?"I was speaking to George Archibald, co-founder of the International Crane Foundation (ICF), during a quiet moment at a wildlife exhibit in the spring of 2004. So many times, while expressing delight over this card collection, now sold out, customers asked me, "do you have any whooping crane images like these?"
I expected George's answer to be one of amusement. The original wild population of endangered migrating whooping cranes, numbering approximately 307 today, nests in Wood Buffalo in the Northwest Territory of Canada. Their nesting sites are inaccessible except to authorized biologists who monitor their numbers. Because this population was reduced to only 15 birds in the early 40's, genetic diversity is of up-most importance to the survival of the species. Captive-reared birds are carefully monitored for genetic value to the wild population and decisions about each off-spring are made by an international recovery team.
To my surprise, he responded by saying there was a good possibility that the whooping crane pair at the Amoco Whooping Crane Exhibit at ICF might be allowed to raise their own chick within full view of the public. And so it was that this door of opportunity opened.It was in June of the next year, 2005, that I received the call, "we're putting a pipping egg in the nest tonight and it should be hatched by morning." With that, I dropped everything and began the twelve hour drive from Knoxville, TN to Baraboo, WI, arriving around eleven a.m. June 19.

The sleeping chick had hatched in the pre-dawn hours. When it awoke and raised it's head, two very attentive parents greeted it with food.The image above is among my favorite photos because it captures the parents' earnest attentiveness. As the chick stirred, they moved in unison, almost as one, carefully offering the chick the tiniest of insects held in their enormous bills.The chick toppled over on his face, so new was he to life that when he reached for the morsels he lost his balance. The parents retracted their bills, waited for him to erect himself, then ever so slowly, moved their bills toward him again to offer the food.

Keep in mind that an adult whooping crane is five ft tall and its newly hatched chick measures only about four inches, not even the size of the adult's head and bill combined...
and you get a glimpse of how truely awe inspiring it was to witness the patience and gentleness demonstrated by these two parents. Next: A whooping crane chick's day.