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| As I opened the door of my vehicle I could hear them well before I saw them - Sandhill cranes gossiping in their garbled calls. I approached quietly, not wanting to disturb them on their staging area. The young of the year chicks could be picked out by the rusty overcast of their feathers, as well as their still young voices, which emitted high pitched peeping sounds. |
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| Scanning the excellent crane habitat, I spotted a Whooping crane, not quite obscured by the trees. The beeps over the telemetry receiver told me this was our number 1 female from last years study. Almost a full year to the day that she and her fifteen flockmates had been guided here by our aircraft, she had found this area all on her own. |
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| As I watched her through binoculars another glowing white figure came into view... I quickly scanned through the transmitter frequencies, hoping to determine which bird this might be, however the receiver was silent. I knew from the ICF tracking team that only two of the older cranes were unaccounted for and thought that this was likely crane #106; a male who had spent a few weeks at this location last year. Both he and crane #107 are wearing radio transmitters that are non-functional. |
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| It turns out, crane 106 was reported the next morning still back in Wisconsin. After taking a closer look at the distant photos I could tell by the white over red band combination on her right leg that the tall white figure on the left was in fact a female - #107. |
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