Whooping Crane Family--Part II

A whooping crane chick's day. I witnessed this peaceful scene between the chick and its mother on the chick's second day as they rested near the water's edge.
There was a constant communication between the parents and the chick, reassuring even to me as I observed. The brood call is a purring sound, deep, gutteral and constant, with the male's tone slightly deeper than the female's. The chick answers with tiny peeps and these soothing sounds assure the family that all is peaceful and safe in their world. The whooping crane is a prey species, ever vigilant for dangers and intruders. The parents working as a team, watch over their chick, in this case, the male hunting in the water, the female staying near the chick and almost exclusively presenting him with insects she catches nearby.Above, the chick has wandered back to the nest, a mass of plucked grasses which are now darkened by decay. As he rests, the female brings him an insect she has clasped in her bill. (The precision of these catches never ceases to fascinate me.)Below the male is hunting for crusteceans and tadpoles in the water. The disarray of feathers you see are molted feathers that have not fallen off yet. The whooping crane's appearance is usually sleek with its feathers neatly preened.

The chick's chief activities include sleeping, eating and learning what to eat and how to be a crane as it exercises and grows stronger.
The chick is moving past the male as he tries to present a morsel of food.

Though he appears to be, the chick isn't exactly following the female above, either. He is exploring and learning to use his legs. She watches over him carefully, even while hunting, and shifts directions to stay near him.
Oops....
Time to rest a while.

With the exception of group tours that came through the observation area periodically, for much of the day I was alone in this exhibit wetland with the cranes and their chick. The silence gave me plenty of opportunity to forget there was another world. What I mostly heard was the vocalizations of the whooping cranes, the rippling of water, the buzz of insects and the beeping of a few swallows over head. This world that I glimpsed, at its best, was an incredibly peaceful world.

Next: Video clip! For all Whooping Crane Family posts click here.
Thanks to the International Crane Foundation for this observation opportunity. For more of my posts on whooping cranes click here.
This post has been linked to Bird Photography Weekly #6 at Birdfreak.com to promote the love of birds and conservation.

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.

Intimacy with Nature

My approach to nature-- a bird, an animal, a flower, a tree--has always been intimacy, to experience the nature around me as deeply as possible. As a result of that inclination, I fall in love a lot. And I laugh a lot. That's what nature brings into my life. That's what the whooping crane and ultralight migration and the tiny, fast winged creature, the hummingbird, give to me. The joy that comes with intimacy.

I decided to share this photo today as I get ready to head for the office and I will share the rest of the story soon.
This was one of the most peaceful and intimate moments I've shared with a whooping crane. Many times I was alone with this family for hours on end, with no sound but the deep gutteral brood purr of the parents and the tiny peeping of the chick. The world hushed. Time stood still. And I couldn't have been more mezmerized by what I was seeing.
More about this family soon.

Migration Progress

While I'm working on illustrations for a book about the whooping crane, the tallest bird in North America, I take nature breaks to check on the migration progress of our smallest bird. I can see the ruby-throated hummingbird migrants from my window as I type and sometimes I step out into the sunshine to sit for a while. The antics of the juveniles give me a chuckle-break, like when they sit on top of the feeder with their backs straight and tall, soldier-like.
Or other times, leaning back taking in everything around them. And when I look at my images, it never ceases to amaze me that their wings beat faster than the shutter speed.
Visitors to the feeder are thinning out each day as the air is getting colder and the leaves turning to fall hues.
But I don't lack company as I observe. My five-lined skink neighbors frequently join me, sometimes more than one of them, in pursuit of another. Tiny ones no bigger around than a pencil and longer, slightly bigger ones.
Humm...where does this one think he's going?
That's my door...

Hummers Still Migrating Through

We have a cool 71 degrees, overcast and alternately drizzly east Tennessee Saturday. Ruby-throated hummers are still visiting my feeder frequently, though I haven’t seen a male since our resident male departed on September 15. Our Atlas of the Breeding Birds of Tennessee, by Charles P. Nicholson, is non-specific about when the last ruby-throated hummers depart TN, saying, “The hummingbird…usually arrives by mid-April and departs by early October.” The former agrees with my observations this spring. And though I didn’t record my last sighting in 2007, my last photograph of a hummer was taken on the 29th of September. I’ll be observing more carefully this year. Some twittering in the branches also caught my attention while outside and though there was no flutey song to confirm his identity, this migrating Swainson's thrush settled quietly in the hemlock that stands outside my window. It is so hushed right now while I am writing this. Even the robins, chickadees and blue jays are silently listening to the drizzle. A very wet and fall-ish feeling day.
This post has been linked to Bird Photography Weekly #4 at the Birdfreak blog. It's a new idea to help promote the beauty of birds. Check it out and post your favorite bird photos there!

The Whooping Crane’s Imposing Will

“When you sit crouched in a blind and watch an adult Whooper stride close by you, his head high and proud, his bearing arrogant and imposing, you feel the presence of a strength and of a stubborn will to survive that is one of the vital intangibles of this entire situation.” These are the words of biologist, Robert Allen, in his Audubon monograph, The Whooping Crane, September 30, 1950, when this species population numbered less than 20. While working on a children’s book project about whooping cranes, I have turned to this monograph from time to time for information. As I did so recently, I stumbled across this account:

On May 21, 1876, George B. Sennett, the inveterate collector from Erie, Pennsylvania, was hunting at Elbow Lake, Grant County Minnesota. On the previous day his companion had killed two Whooping cranes nearby and Sennett was determined to secure a specimen. He located a pair at their nest, which was built on top of a muskrat house in a burnt slough, with only short grass clumps for cover. As he approached to a point close to the nest the birds left, and Sennett concealed himself as best he could, piling grass over himself as he lay prone behind a clump.

“Fully half an hour went by and I began to cramp and feel uneasy and was on the point of changing my position at the risk of losing my covering by the wind, when one noble fellow flew over the slough and lit on the opposite side from me about two shots off. Cautiously he began to survey the situation and shortly his mate came swooping down to his side. They kept their eyes well on my bunch of grass and remained at a safe distance, yet I could see they knew their eggs were safe. Some fifteen minutes of strutting back and forth when she boldly walked out into the water, some eight or ten inches deep, directly toward me, mounted the rat house and sat down on her two eggs, some twenty-five yards from me in plain sight. I could see her wink her eyes watching me and her mate constantly. Her eyes gleamed like fire. How anxious and how handsome, was ever a sight so grand….The male stood on the ridge watching her closely for a few minutes. When feeling all was safe he calmly commenced to plume himself in grand style and shortly walked off away from me the proudest of birds….I slowly arose, turned and gave her one barrel as she was rising from the nest and the next before she had gone six feet and dropped her in the water….” (Deane, 1923).

Your reaction, I'm sure, was much the same as mine. While the introduction explains that we're reading a hunting account, the conclusion is none-the-less stunning.

Beyond reflexive recoil there is the following harsh reality: with one fallen female, a breeding pair is destroyed and a season of off-spring lost. It will take six years to replace this nesting female if all goes well-- one year to reach the next breeding season, five more for a female chick to reach breeding maturity. Unforeseen circumstances could delay breeding success even further.

By the early 1940's the entire population of whooping cranes was nearly lost, not just from hunting and collecting, but largely due to the draining of wetlands and the encroachment of settlement.

The above account took place 132 years ago. When you consider the causes of this bird's decline and our progress toward correcting them, do you sometimes wonder what will be said of us in as many years?

White Birds at Necedah NWR

My whooping crane biologist friends often refer to mature whooping cranes in the east as “white” birds, distinguishing them from juveniles. The palette of cinnamon among new white feathers and black wing-tips is truly beautiful on whooping crane fledglings. Add to this combination a young peeping voice and magestic wings that span nearly seven feet and you have glimpsed some of the wonder of this tallest bird in North America. Gradually, by the end of their first year, these young whooping cranes lose their cinnamon feathers and develop the facial mask that is characteristic of adults.They also lose their peeping voice and develop the distinctive whooping calls that earned this species its name, a call that can be heard as far away as two miles.
While visiting Necedah for Cranefest, I had the enjoyable experience of touring the refuge with several other Operation Migration directors. Our knowledgeable guide and storyteller was Brook Pennypacker, Operation Migration crew member, photographed here while wearing the costume that helps keep our captive-reared whooping cranes wild and unaccustomed to the human figure.Among the other white birds we viewed was this family of trumpeter swans.
Not only was it a pleasant surprise to get a glimpse of this family, the photo itself was a surprise.It was taken from a moving vehicle with the camera stretched across another passenger to access the open window. I have to give the credit here to my talented camera, the amazing Canon Rebel Xti!
There are three signets in the photo but you have to look a bit more carefully to find the third. There were many wonderful things to see at the refuge that I missed and will look forward to seeing the next visit, among them the endangered gray wolves and karner blue butterflies.But black-eyed Susans and blue asters were easily accessible, scattered along forest edges and meadows, never failing to catch my attention.
Soothing to the eye and close at hand, their splash of color complimented a rich landscape rapidly changing into fall foliage.

I and the Bird #84

While I was traveling to exhibit art and enjoy the endangered Whooping crane, my blog article on Ruby-throated humming birds was included in the I and the Bird blog carnival.

A blog carnival is a collection of blog posts on a related theme, selected by its host and featured at regular intervals, in this case, semi-weekly. I submitted my September 15th post on Ruby-throated hummingbirds and was delighted to discover today (as I'm behind in my reading!) that my article had been included in the current carnival edition.

Audubon Birdscapes hosts edition #84 with A Beginner's Guide to Bird Blogs and introduces the featured blogs as "a quick look at 20 of the best". Fun, especially since I'm relatively new on the blog scene.

My thanks also to The Zen Birdfeeder, included also in the current IATB edition, for her mention of my blog as one she's added to her favorites list. Check out IATB # 84.