Seeing whooping crane in Nebraska like hitting birder's lottery

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BY JOE DUGGAN / Lincoln Journal Star

Hundreds of sandhill cranes rained from the sky on a perfect autumn afternoon above the most beautiful river in Nebraska.

The three Lincoln men who witnessed the migrating birds couldn’t believe their good fortune.

Then it got better.

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Migrating whooping cranes -- four adults and a juvenile -- use the Niobrara River along the Nature Conservancy's Niobrara Valley Preserve for a roosting site on Oct. 24. (Courtesy of Bill Hager, copyright 2007)

Bill Hager, a hobby photographer who has made many trips to the Sandhills and the Niobrara River over the years, noticed five birds that peeled from the flock.

Darrin Divis lifted his binoculars and clearly saw brilliant white feathers.

“We knew we were onto some whooping cranes,” Hager said.

Hager, Divis and Troy Johnson returned to camp upstream with plans to go back and photograph one of the most endangered birds in North America.

Fog spread over the river valley the next morning. Divis, who recently returned from time in Iraq with the Nebraska Army National Guard, and Hager finally saw the whoopers on a sandbar in the river once the fog lifted.

For about an hour, they watched as the cranes — four adults and one juvenile — preened and loafed in the Niobrara’s sandy shallows in Brown County. Hager filled multiple frames with his digital Nikon, equipped with a 500 mm lens that made the birds clearly identifiable.

Then the whoopers took off and disappeared into the blue.

“It was the highlight of the trip,” Hager said. “I told Darrin, ‘You realize, we’ll probably never see that again.’”

He’s absolutely right.

This fall, an estimated 250 wild whoopers will migrate from their breeding grounds in Canada to wintering grounds on the Texas Gulf Coast. Most will fly through Nebraska’s air space.

Some will land in and near Nebraska rivers, wetlands and corn fields for a respite from their 2,500-mile journey.

Yet just a handful of people will ever see whooper, said Karine Gil, an ecologist with the Platte River Whooping Crane Maintenance Trust near Alda. It’s simply a matter of numbers — 250 is an awfully small number for a bird.

Gil is in charge of a program called Whooper Watch, which seeks to confirm whooping crane sightings so scientists can learn more about their habitat needs and other information.

“The highest mortality is during the spring and fall migrations,” she said. “Where and when and why? We don’t know all the answers.”

Power lines represent the greatest danger cranes face during migration, but scientists also worry about storms and disease. With so few individual birds in the migrating population, whoopers remain highly vulnerable.

What wildlife biologists know for sure is the whooping crane population plummeted during the first half of the 20th century, largely because of unregulated hunting and wetland destruction. By 1941, only 16 whoopers existed.

Legal protections for the birds, along with captive breeding and reintroduction efforts, have helped the cranes slowly rebound. Now about 500 exist, although roughly 150 of those are captive.

Only the flock that migrates through Nebraska still reproduces in the wild at levels that sustain its population, said Martha Tacha, biologist with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in Grand Island.

Because whoopers are easily mistaken with sandhill cranes and pelicans, biologists need solid evidence to confirm a sighting. Ideally, they or trained volunteers visit the location of a sighting to see if the birds are present. They will confirm if a layperson provides a clear photograph.

But while they need to hear about sightings, biologists don’t want people to disturb resting or roosting cranes, Tacha said. She recommended maintaining a half-mile cushion and staying inside a vehicle if at all possible.

The whooping crane fall migration typically runs from early October through early November. April is the peak month for their spring migration through Nebraska.

So far this fall, scientists have confirmed six sightings, Tacha said, including a highly unusual flock of 30 whoopers flying above the Valentine National Wildlife Refuge on Oct. 20. The sighting was made by a wildlife biologist who got a long look at the birds.

When the cranes converge at the Aransas National Wildlife Refuge in Texas in coming weeks, biologists will get to do their first head count since the birds departed last spring.

They hope their estimate of 250 birds proves true. If so, it will represent a new record high for the migrating population in modern times.

And it might point to a day when whooping crane sightings in Nebraska are a little less rare.

Reach Joe Duggan at 473-7239 or jduggan@journalstar.com.