I got the initial call Friday,
November 4th from friends who own property on Wooldridge Road in south Corpus
Christi near the Oso Bay (about half a mile from our own house, yet!). They said
a whooping crane had just flown in to join a winter resident flock of sandhill
cranes that overwinter on two adjoining properties each year. The crane flew in
around 2pm or so, and was sticking close to the sandhill cranes as it foraged
for food. I immediately headed for their ranchito and did verify that a whooping
crane with primarily all white plumage was in the flock. After we all quit
jumping up and down and high-fiving each other, <grin!>, I took some photographs
of it. We then re-located the whooper again on Saturday at the same location and
I got more photographs. Again, it arrived Saturday in the early afternoon to
join the sandhill crane flock.
I contacted biologist Tom Stehn, US Whooping Crane Coordinator, US Fish and
Wildlife Service immediately on ID'g it on Friday. Based on its physical
description, lack of any leg bands and its behavior, Tom says it appears to be a
sexually immature whooping crane somewhere between two and four years of age. It
is further possible, Tom notes, that this may well be the same crane that was
sighted last winter at Bayside, TX (a little rural community just up coast,
across Copano Bay from Rockport, TX). With the second day's sighting, an
official entry will be made of it in the US records in Tom's office.
We will be watching the two Corpus properties with great anticipation to see if
the whooper likes what it finds and decides to stick around. I did go back out
several times today (Sunday, Nov 6) to check on it, but did not locate it. The
crane, while very vocal on Friday and Saturday, is also very spooky and
suspicious, and will fly at the first hint of possible trouble. So if you try to
view it, please keep that in mind, as well as the fact that the cranes are on
private property of some wonderful landowners who are trying to maintain a safe
winter refuge for the cranes amidst clear-cutting of adjacent lands by area
developers for new housing developments.
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