By Phyllis Yochem
Published Monday, February 22, 2010

CORPUS CHRISTI  Birders can learn much at bird festivals. A good one, the Whooping Crane Festival, begins Thursday in Port Aransas.

This celebration is dedicated to the endangered species, which is the tallest bird in North America at about 5 feet. They travel 2,400 miles annually from their breeding ground in Canada to winter at Aransas National Wildlife Refuge.

At one time in 1938, this flock numbered 18 birds. The number has now been built back to 263 at the refuge as of January.

WHOOPING CRANE REPORT  January 21, 2010:

The fifth aerial census of the 2009-10 whooping crane season was conducted January 21, 2010 in a Cessna 210 piloted by Gary Ritchey of Air Transit Solutions of Castroville, Texas with USFWS observer Tom Stehn. Sighted on the flight were 235 adults and 18 juveniles = 253 total whooping cranes. This was 10 birds less than the last flight conducted 1-05-10. However, flight time was limited by fog that did not burn off until 10:30 AM, so some cranes were presumably overlooked, as search time had to be condensed.  More telling than the total number of cranes tallied was the distribution observed that seemed to confirm the estimated flock size. However, it definitely appears that one juvenile has died since arriving at Aransas. This juvenile had been found in the refuge's South Sundown Island territory. On today's flight, a pair believed to be the S. Sundown Island pair was seen very close to their territorial neighbors to the south. It seemed clear that I was looking at adjacent territorial pairs, and that the S.Sundown Island pair was missing its chick. It is also possible that the Dewberry Island pair at Welder's Flats has lost their chick, but it is also possible they had moved over to the refuge's Power Lake on Matagorda Island where there was an unexpected family.

WHOOPING CRANE REPORT

The fourth aerial census of the 2009-10 whooping crane season was conducted January 5, 2010 in a Cessna 210 piloted by Gary Ritchey of Air Transit Solutions of Castroville, Texas with USFWS observer Tom Stehn.  Sighted on the flight were 244 adults and 19 juveniles = 263 total.  This was an increase of 19 cranes since the previous flight conducted December 10th when some birds had still been in migration and 244 cranes were accounted for.  One additional juvenile separated from its parents was sighted near Medford, Oklahoma  December 14-25 which brings the current estimated flock size to 264.  In addition, the South Sundown Island chick known to be at Aransas was not found on today's flight, so one chick can be added to the peak flock size for the 2009-10 winter (244+21=265).  It is not known if the entire South Sundown Island family group was overlooked on today's flight, or possibly the chick has died and its parents were sighted off of their territory but not identified as such during the flight.