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Whooping Cranes from Texas
Apr 10, 2017 22:54:23   #
GregWCIL Loc: Illinois
 
If you ever get a chance, visit Rockport Texas and take a photography boat tour along Aransas National Wildlife Refuge. That area of the Texas Gulf coast is the winter home to all the remaining endangered Whooping Cranes in the world. There are plus or minus 400 left (their numbers are increasing) and we saw roughly 36 of them that morning.

They spend virtually all day fishing. Here crab was their main diet. We approached very quietly by boat and they seemed to ignore our presence.


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Apr 10, 2017 23:56:20   #
IBM
 
GregWCIL wrote:
If you ever get a chance, visit Rockport Texas and take a photography boat tour along Aransas National Wildlife Refuge. That area of the Texas Gulf coast is the winter home to all the remaining endangered Whooping Cranes in the world. There are plus or minus 400 left (their numbers are increasing) and we saw roughly 36 of them that morning.

They spend virtually all day fishing. Here crab was their main diet. We approached very quietly by boat and they seemed to ignore our presence.


What kind of torture device has that one got on its legs, you can see its leg bone in one frame . That must smart like hell

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Apr 11, 2017 00:02:46   #
GregWCIL Loc: Illinois
 
IBM wrote:
What kind of torture device has that one got on its legs, you can see its leg bone in one frame . That must smart like hell


Most of the whoopers are banded and as you can see some have multiple bands. I'm guessing the extra big one is a locating device - probably GPS. Doesn't look comfy to me either.

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Apr 11, 2017 10:09:11   #
rehess Loc: South Bend, Indiana, USA
 
GregWCIL wrote:
If you ever get a chance, visit Rockport Texas and take a photography boat tour along Aransas National Wildlife Refuge. That area of the Texas Gulf coast is the winter home to all the remaining endangered Whooping Cranes in the world. There are plus or minus 400 left (their numbers are increasing) and we saw roughly 36 of them that morning...

These pictures are very good, but the information you were given isn't quite accurate.

Back in the 1950's Whooping Cranes were on the edge of extinction - the birds you saw would have been all existing Whooping Cranes back then - so the U.S. government took a series of steps to revive the breed. One concern was that a local disaster could wipe out all of the birds, so a primary goal was to disperse the breed. They created a separate flock in Florida, but then discovered that young birds learn to migrate by following older birds, so this flock doesn't go anywhere. They created a third flock, and then used an ultra-light airplane to guide these birds to a summer home {in Wisconsin, IIRC}.

Somewhere in all of this, they also put some Whooping Crane eggs in Sandhill Crane nests
http://www.uglyhedgehog.com/t-453678-1.html#7627392

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Apr 11, 2017 10:12:43   #
photophile Loc: Lakewood, Ohio, USA
 
GregWCIL wrote:
If you ever get a chance, visit Rockport Texas and take a photography boat tour along Aransas National Wildlife Refuge. That area of the Texas Gulf coast is the winter home to all the remaining endangered Whooping Cranes in the world. There are plus or minus 400 left (their numbers are increasing) and we saw roughly 36 of them that morning.

They spend virtually all day fishing. Here crab was their main diet. We approached very quietly by boat and they seemed to ignore our presence.


Beauties Greg,I like to ease up on herons and egrets in my kayak.

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Apr 11, 2017 13:53:07   #
IBM
 
rehess wrote:
These pictures are very good, but the information you were given isn't quite accurate.

Back in the 1950's Whooping Cranes were on the edge of extinction - the birds you saw would have been all existing Whooping Cranes back then - so the U.S. government took a series of steps to revive the breed. One concern was that a local disaster could wipe out all of the birds, so a primary goal was to disperse the breed. They created a separate flock in Florida, but then discovered that young birds learn to migrate by following older birds, so this flock doesn't go anywhere. They created a third flock, and then used an ultra-light airplane to guide these birds to a summer home {in Wisconsin, IIRC}.

Somewhere in all of this, they also put some Whooping Crane eggs in Sandhill Crane nests
http://www.uglyhedgehog.com/t-453678-1.html#7627392
These pictures are very good, but the information ... (show quote)


Back in 1997 we went camping on a lake fishing rainbow trout , in 100 mile house aera in B.C. , Ana a swamp that was hard to get to
From the lake we were at , you could hear the whooping Crain's all day long at certain times they were really whooping, some said there was at least 25 or so over there, this was in early June

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Apr 11, 2017 20:14:25   #
Cwilson341 Loc: Central Florida
 
Very well done series. These are magnificent birds.

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Apr 11, 2017 22:42:36   #
tbell7D Loc: Houston
 
Outstanding images of these amazing birds.

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Apr 12, 2017 00:05:26   #
sailorsmom Loc: Souderton, PA
 
Beautiful shots, Greg!

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Apr 12, 2017 05:16:05   #
J-SPEIGHT Loc: Akron, Ohio
 
GregWCIL wrote:
If you ever get a chance, visit Rockport Texas and take a photography boat tour along Aransas National Wildlife Refuge. That area of the Texas Gulf coast is the winter home to all the remaining endangered Whooping Cranes in the world. There are plus or minus 400 left (their numbers are increasing) and we saw roughly 36 of them that morning.

They spend virtually all day fishing. Here crab was their main diet. We approached very quietly by boat and they seemed to ignore our presence.


Nice set Greg.

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Apr 12, 2017 10:26:07   #
Bill Koepsel Loc: Oconomowoc, Wisconsin
 
The International Crane Foundation is located in Baraboo Wisconsin. There they have on the grounds every of the worlds 17 type of crane.
They do research on the Whopping crane and most others there.

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Apr 12, 2017 16:36:47   #
Swamp-Cork Loc: Lanexa, Virginia
 
GregWCIL wrote:
If you ever get a chance, visit Rockport Texas and take a photography boat tour along Aransas National Wildlife Refuge. That area of the Texas Gulf coast is the winter home to all the remaining endangered Whooping Cranes in the world. There are plus or minus 400 left (their numbers are increasing) and we saw roughly 36 of them that morning.

They spend virtually all day fishing. Here crab was their main diet. We approached very quietly by boat and they seemed to ignore our presence.


Great set, GregWCIL, and am very thankful that I have lived long enough to see these positive results! Thanks for posting!

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Apr 13, 2017 17:23:14   #
Tikva Loc: Waukesha, WI
 
Beautiful shots no matter how many birds there are.

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Apr 18, 2017 16:01:23   #
topcat Loc: Alameda, CA
 
Great series

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