Little Rodents and Big Birds: Cotton Rats, Deer Mice, and Whooping Cranes

Hi!  I am back.  I ended the previous post rather abruptly (although I have edited it at the end slightly) because this year's iNaturalist City Challenge (international, Texas, and DFW) was upon us.  We needed to get out and take pictures.  We did not make as many observations as last year due primarily to high water and hence limited access to large parts of LLELA.  Despite all of that, as of today I finally got posted 273 observations of 179 (or maybe 183) unique species (both plants and animals) for the four days of the event, April 26, 27, 28, and 29. 

One slightly different thing we did this year was go with a person from Texas Parks and Wildlife to recover 33 live mammal traps in a normally restricted area of LLELA.  We were in hopes of recovering some small mammals.  Mission accomplished!   After only being in the field overnight with a little chicken feed for bait, the traps contained two cotton rats and a deer mouse.  That was fun and allowed us to see some critters up close and personal that we would otherwise likely never have seen at all.

Picking up the first trap.  It was empty.

One of two cotton rats transferred into a clear cage so we could see it.

Trying to get the deer mouse to come out.

One deer mouse.

A close up look at one of the cotton rats before letting him go.  Look at those teeth!  They are orange just like beavers and nutrias!  Who knew?!

Thanks, Rachel, that was fun.

Now back to High Island...

One of the interesting aspects of our trip to High Island was talking to the other people we encountered at the birding sites or in the motel.  Although we felt like pretenders among all of these very serious birders, and we were pretty open about being beginners, it did not seem to bother the other folks.  They were friendly and sharing.  Multiple tidbits came from some of these conversations.

Swarovski optics, yes the high end spotting scope people, had a van at Boy Scout Woods.  The Frog talked to their rep at length about the products they carry to fasten a spotting scope to the front of a DSLR camera.  This is probably not something he will do since it does not fit with our birding-while-hiking approach, but the Frog did not know it was even a possibility and came home with a handful of literature.

A Houston store had a kiosk showing binoculars, scopes, and accessories.  The strap they were featuring was actually a sling camera strap with a binocular adapter.  I talked at length with the rep about the strap and realized it might be the perfect solution to get the weight of my camera off my neck.  I waited to order it until after I returned home, but now have a new Peak Designs strap which I love.

A couple we met told us about the annual Attwater Prairie Chicken Festival going on that weekend and the opportunity on the second weekend of April each year (the only chance each year) to see the male birds in their spring mating dance at the Attwater Prairie NWR near Sealy, Texas.  We did not know such a place existed and did not pursue it this year, but will keep it in mind for future years.

However, by far the greatest buzz was about some whooping cranes in a farmer's field outside of Winnie.  I asked one woman for directions and realized it would be only 5-10 minutes from our motel.  I did not know if we would be able to find the birds but figured it was worth a shot since they were so close.

We found the field easily and after some searching saw two white dots in the distance.  There they were!  We drove around to the side of the field to get as close as we could, which wasn't very close.

The two white dots on the left are the cranes as they appeared with minimal magnification (equivalent to a 90mm lens).  For calibration. the farmer's red pickup truck on the right is closer to us than the birds.  BTW, the birds seemed totally oblivious to him digging with that large back hoe in the middle of the field.

Reaching out with my camera's zoom lens, they were definitely recognizable as whooping cranes.  Although the pictures were unclear, we think we watched one of them eat a snake.

With my zoom lens at equivalent to 3000 mm. Good thing they are the tallest birds in North America, up to 5 ft 3 in, and not camouflaged or we  never would have seen them.

Why such a big deal?  Eighty years ago these birds were on the brink of extinction.  A population in Florida died off and a hurricane in 1940 killed or scattered the individuals in a flock in Louisiana which never reproduced in the wild again.  By 1941 there were only 15-21 (the number varies with different sources) wild whooping cranes and two captive whooping cranes left in the world.  The wild birds were those that returned to Aransas National Wildlife Refuge on the Texas coast. Apparently all of the remaining birds today are descendants of those Aransas survivors...tough Texans!

There was so little known about the birds that efforts to raise them in captivity were initially largely unsuccessful.  However, slowly but surely through various efforts the birds are making a recovery.  There are now two migratory flocks, one that winters on the Texas coast and summers in Canada.  The other winters in the east and summers in Wisconsin.  There are also two non-migrating flocks, one in Florida and a newly introduced experimental flock in Louisiana (although the birds don't read maps well and have spread into Texas).

From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whooping_crane#/media/File:Grus_americana_map.svg

The total population as of 2018, according to the International Crane Foundation, is 849 birds.

2018 data from the International Crane Foundation, https://www.savingcranes.org/species-field-guide/whooping-crane/

849 is not a large number, but is large enough that the USGS this year ended their 50 year captive breeding program.

The non-migrating Louisiana flock is from a reintroduction program (also see here) that started in 2011.  The first bird hatched in the wild from that project was in 2016.  Based on the reports of multiple baby birds born last year in the wild, the Louisiana non-migratory reintroduction project seems to be succeeding.  I have not confirmed this, but several folks at High Island indicated the cranes we saw near Winnie are part of this non-migrating Louisiana flock.

We went back to the field multiple times as we went in and out of Winnie.  We spotted the birds each time, but they were always a considerable distance from the road.  Early Sunday morning as we left for home we decided to swing by for one last chance at seeing them up close.

We did not see the birds at first, but it was easy to tell where they were given the large number of people on the road as we drove up.

Yep, there they are.  They were closer than previously, but not all that close.

Note the two white dots in the center of the far green field

We took pictures for quite some time and most of the other people left.  Then the birds began walking towards us!  We couldn't believe it, but didn't ask questions.  We just kept clicking.  We kept walking down the road away from them to avoid shooting directly into the sun but they just kept coming.  They finally stopped about 30 yards from us.

 Despite the tall grass, we could see the colored id bands and the radio transmitters on their legs.

Bands and radio transmitter on left leg.

They mostly walked around with their heads down pecking at the ground, but would occasionally raise up. However at one point they suddenly stopped and started "whooping", which was the first time we had heard them make noise of any kind.  I did not think to turn on the video on my camera until it was almost too late.  There is no decent picture in the clip, but you can hear them briefly.

I am not sure what set them off, but they almost immediately went back to feeding and did not seem bothered by us.  We hung around for just awhile longer, then headed towards home.  We may not have seen many migrating warblers on our trip to High Island, but that didn't matter since we had such a great experience with these two big birds.