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Thank you for visiting my page at Angelfire. Please come back and visit again! Rare Whooping Crane Visits Chuckey While Being Tracked By Radio Signals By VELMA S. PRESLEY Living Editor Photo Courtesy Of International Crane Foundation Whitney is home. She arrived in Inverness, Fla., shortly after noon on Thursday. Whitney is a whooping crane, one of America’s rarest birds. She chose a farm pond in Chuckey, in eastern Greene County, for a Thanksgiving weekend visit. And she thereby created much more excitement here than the bird associated with that holiday usually elicits. This exotic visitor had local bird watchers giving thanks as they gladly spent a very cold day outside on Sunday just for a glimpse of this leggy lady. Whitney is one of approximately 400 whooping cranes in the world, and she chose to land near Chuckey Pike at a pond owned by John Dunn Carter. She landed sometime Friday, Nov. 24, but was not discovered until the next day when Howard Earnest, one of Carter’s cousins whose property adjoins the Carter farms, was out for his "usual morning walk" with Penny, a Norwegian elk hound. Earnest is a retired supervisor with the Upper Tennessee District of the Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency. As such, he has more than 30 years’ professional experience with wildlife. Earnest explained during a telephone interview about his first sighting of the rare crane. "I looked up and saw some huge cranes flying over," he said. Someone who knows birds can easily recognize a crane because of its size, and its long, straight neck, which it extends when it flies. Herrons and egrets curl their long necks into an "S" shape when flying, so a crane is easy to distinguish from these birds that are more common to East Tennessee. Earnest continued to watch the cranes, which he supposed to be sand hill cranes (still an unusual bird for Greene County and one that Earnest had never seen before) "as they began to drop," then "leveled with the pond." He approached, and sure enough, "Two were sand hill cranes." To his astonishment, there was "also this huge white bird that I had never seen before." Earnest went back to his house and contacted a neighbor, Connie Stewart, whom he calls "an avid birder." Together, they returned to the pond, armed with bird identification books. They decided they were seeing a whooping crane, but "knew we'd be laughed at" if they told anyone. Tracking Van Comes Here However, they were soon made to feel better because they came upon the tracking van of the International Crane Foundation. Four people from the foundation assured them that they were indeed seeing a whooping crane. The entourage followed radio signals, which are emitted by devices attached to the birds’ legs. Two trackers were in a van strung with antennae, and two of the trackers were in a plane, a Cessna 182. That’s how Whitney’s landing in Chuckey on the 24th was known. The people from the International Crane Foundation had crisscrossed the mountains Friday until they finally located Whitney in Chuckey and were waiting nearby in the van. The pilot used the Greeneville airport, but waited at Chuckey as long as there was little chance of Whitney’s resuming her migration. Throughout their trip, the tracking crew did not notify any local people, either here or anywhere else, out of concern that the rare bird might be harmed or disturbed. They just track the whooping cranes: birds that are difficult to confuse with anything else. The whooping crane (Grus americana) is the tallest bird in North America, standing as high as five feet tall and having a seven- to eight-foot wingspan. Male whooping cranes’ average weight is 16 pounds, while females typically are a couple of pounds lighter. On the ground, a whooping crane appears to be pure white. Only in the air are its black wing tips apparent. Standing, and through binoculars, the big water bird” is seen to have black legs and black on its head as well as a bare patch of red skin. Most of last weekend’s local birders were not close enough to see all the details of the visiting whooping crane, although there was at least one high-powered spotting scope on a tripod through which some of the watchers had a good view, according to Mrs. Ernest (Mary D.) Carter, John Dunn Carter's mother, who also lives nearby. Once Howard Ernest saw the crane, he called long-time bird watchers King and Margaret Gaut, of Tusculum, who then telephoned other friends and fellow members of the Greeneville Chapter of the Tennessee Ornithological Society, including Don Miller, the chapter’s president, and his wife, Alice Loftin. Birders Flock Here Since it was after dark Saturday evening before the two knew about the visiting crane, they waited until daylight on Sunday, the 26th, to head for Chuckey Pike. There, along with Linda Northrup, they were among the first local people on the scene. Jim Holt and Phine and Orland Britton arrived later in the morning, and Margaret and King Gaut arrived soon after lunch on Sunday. The group kept changing, as they left to make phone calls, appreciating the extensive hospitality of the Carters, who made their property and phone available for this "very interesting" occasion they were all sharing. Sighting of the lone whooping crane in Chuckey made Wallace Coffey's Tennessee Bird List. Subscribers to the list who received the news in time were on their way to Chuckey. Coffey, of Bristol, the long-time marketing director at the Bristol Herald Courier, is a lifelong outdoors enthusiast. More birders came from Bristol, Johnson City and other areas as the bird remained in Chuckey longer than her usual one-night sleepover. The cold, windy weather contributed to her stay, during which time she was able to rest and forage for food that would sustain her for the remainder of her tiring journey home. Whitney’s Entourage Already in the Chuckey area, from Friday evening, was Whitney’s entourage from the International Crane Foundation, which had been following Whitney and her adventure mate,” Winston, since April when they began a migration that had never before been attempted by these birds. In e-mail posted on Coffey's Tennessee Bird List, he lists four people who traveled by van and in a Cessna 182 in an attempt to follow the whooping cranes: Anne Lacy from Madison, Wis.; Sara Aimorski of Baraboo, Wis.; Koji Suzuki from Japan; and pilot Mike Frakes of Shaboygan, Wis. Whitney and Winston are part of their breed’s Florida population, which was formed when environmentalists realized that with all the whooping cranes wintering at the Aransas National Wildlife Range in Texas, and breeding at Wood Buffalo National Park in Alberta, Canada, a single natural disaster could totally eradicate the whooping cranes from the planet. Whooping Cranes’ History Information supplied by e-mail from Kate Fitzwilliams, with the International Crane Foundation, explains the modern history of the rare birds. Her e-mail notes that biologists estimate that there were between 700 and 1,400 whooping cranes alive in 1865. By 1938 that number had shrunk to only two small flocks one in Texas and a non-migratory flock in Louisiana. By the winter of 1941-42, there were only 13 adult birds and two juveniles in the migratory flock, and a severe storm in 1940 had reduced the Louisiana population to six birds. The Louisiana flock of these long-lived birds (23 or 24 years) kept declining until Mac, the sole survivor, was captured in 1950. Once the realization was made that the species could be lost forever with just one disaster, a captive” breeding program was established in 1967, using eggs from the Aransas/Wood Buffalo flock. Since only one chick is normally raised from the two eggs laid per breeding season, ornithologists took one egg from each nest and placed it with Whoopers whose eggs were not viable, or even with the more common sand hill crane, to be hatched. The whooping crane population increased at the Patuxent Wildlife Research Center in Maryland. The birds were then taken to Kissimmee, Fla., where they were released. The flock had been non-migratory until Whitney and Winston began their great adventure last spring. They took off on their own, and nobody knew where they went. Later, Whitney and Winston were discovered near Sandusky, Mich., after their locator beacons were heard by a team of crane enthusiasts. Jeb Barzen, director of field ecology with the International Crane Foundation, says there are now approximately 400 whooping cranes both in the wild and in captivity.” Questions About Whitney What Whitney qualifies as is a great question,” Barzen acknowledges. He considers her a reintroduced bird” that has characteristics of the wild population in that she can, or has so far,” survived in the wild, but with other characteristics of the captive birds the ones that do not migrate. Or did not migrate. Miller says that it is questionable whether the crane can be counted as wild” and thus added to a serious birder’s list, or should be considered more of a tame or captive” bird not to be listed. Whitney and Winston's homeward trek picked up again on Nov. 21 from the Sandusky, Mich., location. After the first day, they roosted, states a Wallace Coffey e-mail, "on the north side of Lake Erie," where the waters were frozen. They headed out Tuesday over the Canadian waters of Lake Erie. Winston Was Lost Somewhere on that journey, Winston became separated from his mate and has not been seen since, and the team has not located a radio signal from him. (An e-mail from Barzen stated that the Crane Foundation has not given up on finding Winston, however. Now that Whitney is safely home, the plane, the land crew and others concerned about Winston are checking out areas in Ontario and Ohio, as well as in Tennessee and Florida, in an attempt to locate him.) Whitney continued her travel to Langsville, Ohio, where she spent the night. Then on Thanksgiving Day she flew into southwest Virginia. Whitney has traveled as far as 200 miles in a day (a short flight, Barzen notes, compared to some daily mileages for flocks of cranes). She spent Thanksgiving night in Russell County, Va., along the Clinch River near Lebanon, then flew out early on the day that brought her to Chuckey. She remained in Chuckey until about 9:50 a.m. Monday, Don Miller reported. Both he and Earnest were on hand to see the big bird before it flew off. Earnest and Penny were again taking their walk. Earnest saw the crane "playing with the calves and really sounding off. "She was doing a dance and letting out that whoop," Earnest recalled. One Of Prettiest Things’ When Whitney took flight, "she had to run a little ways," he recalled, and her flying "is one of the prettiest things I've ever seen." Miller is especially interested in bird song and explained that he heard Whitney "vocalize softly" in what he called a "cooing" sound. Then at about 9:45 a.m. she began "bugling." Miller explained that "The bugling call really has power. It's a beautiful sound, distinctive and loud." He found it fitting that "the last thing we had was the whooping crane whoop" as she flew away, heading straight south. By Monday evening she was in Anderson, S.C.; on Tuesday evening she landed in Statesboro, Ga. She spent Wednesday evening near Jacksonville, Fla., a short flight from home in Inverness. On Thursday morning, she covered the 90 miles in about four hours, arriving at about 1 p.m. back to a beautiful wetland near a housing site,” Barzen reported in a Thursday afternoon e-mail. She was home, back to a territory she had occupied before leaving Florida in April,” he wrote. Air crew and ground crew were there as well.” For local people involved with the Whitney saga, their tones of voice, if not their actual words, echo Howard Earnest's when he said, "It sure was a privilege." Photo Courtesy Of International Crane Foundation The tallest of American birds, the whooping crane, can reach 5 feet in height and appears to be solid white unless it is flying, when the black wing tips are visible. One of the rare birds, named Whitney, spent Thanksgiving weekend at a Chuckey pond. While this is not a photograph of Whitney, it was furnished by the International Crane Foundation so that our readers will know what a whooper” looks like, just in case others of the species decide to follow Whitney’s adventurous example and try migration.
