Whooping Crane Tour

 

    Though I am not publishing them in order, this is the last blog post I am actually writing. It won't be the last I publish. I've been trying to mix them up with long ones followed by short ones. I posted two long ones when we were all snowed in for two days. Most of my posts are about birding so the ones that aren't  (Logistics, non- bird animals I saw in Texas, Palo Alto Battlefield) I'm trying to mix in to break up the monotony.  But like I said, this is the last one I am writing but I have others scheduled to be published each day. 

   We went to see Whooping Cranes on day three of our trip. It was the first thing we did when we left San Antonio. We had to get up really early because we had a couple hour drive to the town of Rockport. Our boat trip was 9 AM- noon. 

   The cost was not cheap. I think our boat trip was $125/person. Laurie normally goes on whale watches, but not expensive boat trips such as Rhode Island pelagics. She made an exception so our three hour tour was $250. To be honest, when I was researching Whooping Cranes, I thought the only way to see them was by boat. Since they are one of the rarest and one of the largest flying birds in the world I wanted to see them. If I'd have researched better, I probably could have seen them at other places from dry land for free. Many on the boat had already seen Whooping Cranes from other parks. 

   None the less, I have no regrets. We saw many species of birds. Besides the cranes, I got Neotropical Cormorant as a lifer. At the time, I didn't know I'd see them at every place that had water so I was really excited.  I also got a photo upgrade of a Long Billed Curlew. The only one I had ever seen before was in the prairie in Badlands National Park. So it was exciting to see eight of them.

   We saw many species of gulls, terns, shorebirds, and hawks. We had Bottlenose Dolphins near the boat for over thirty minutes.

    I had thought that Whooping Cranes flocked together.  I was wrong about this. Even in winter they are very territorial. Usually a mated pair and their offspring from that year will be in one area and they won't tolerate others in the area. We ended up seeing nine cranes. We saw two family groups and three "teenage birds" too old to be with their parents but too young to mate. The two families crossed paths and true enough, the male scared off the other family. 

   The captain was in no rush and let everyone enjoy all of the birds we found. He stopped at every species even if only for a minute. We stayed with the cranes for a very long time and as I said, the dolphins. He made sure I knew which cormorants were Neotropical. One lady hoped to see Curlews so when we saw them we stayed with them for ten minutes and made sure she saw them. It was a great trip.

It's not a perfect photo but it is a hell of a lot better
than the one I saw in South Dakota a hundred yards 
away with most of its body hidden by foot high grass

The harmony here did not last long. Whooping
Cranes don't like interlopers in their territory.