Day 3, Great Blue Herons, Rookery, Aransas

Having flooded my photostream with Whooping Cranes the last few days, today I am now flooding it again, this time with photos taken while stopping at a rookery during our day boat trip to the Aransas Pass Wetlands. There was a number of different species on this small 'island', but even the Herons alone looked so beautiful in their different positions, I just couldn't post fewer images. I want to remember as much as possible. Usually, when I am lucky enough to ever see a rookery, it is always seen from far, far away, so as not to stress out the nesting birds. This time, we were privileged to see one much closer, from our little boat, the "Lady Lori".

What an amazing, fascinating time we spent with the Whooping Cranes a bit earlier in the morning, and then these Herons and Egrets. Thank you, Lori, captain of the Lady Lori boat, for this wonderful experience! Something that will never be forgotten.

It was interesting to see the wooden platforms that had been built on the 'island' to replace the natural nesting places for the Herons, that had been destroyed by Hurricane Harvey in August 2017. It was also nice to see that various species of Egrets were living very comfortably side by side with the Great Blues.

This private tour for four friends and myself was arranged in Calgary beforehand. I would definitely recommend this trip to anyone!

Aransas Bay Birding Charters:

texasbirdingphotos.net/cgi-bin/p/awtp-home.cgi?d=aransas-...

The Whooping Crane family that we watched, with the youngster (colt) learning how to preen and how to catch food, especially from watching Dad, was wonderful. Our presence seemed to have zero affect on these Cranes, as they went about their daily routines. So neat to know that all these Whooping Cranes will fly north to Alberta, my own province, where they will spend the summer. Wise birds, avoiding our many months of brutal winter weather up north!

This is a Youtube video that shows the capture of a wild Whooping Crane adult and a tracking device being attached:

youtu.be/YtVt842trpo

"Before human interference, there were believed to be 15,000 to 20,000 whooping cranes, which fell to roughly 1,400 in 1860 and then plummeted to an all-time low of 15 birds in 1941. All signs pointed towards the end of the whooping crane.

The 15 surviving whooping cranes all belonged to one flock that migrated between Wood Buffalo National Park in Canada and the Aransas National Wildlife Refuge in Texas. Conservationists worked with local, federal, and international governments to protect the flock and encourage breeding. Their efforts paid off slowly as the numbers reached 57 by 1970 and 214 by 2005."

www.nwf.org/Educational-Resources/Wildlife-Guide/Birds/Wh...

"Cellular Tracking Technologies is privileged to be working with the scientists employed by both the US and Canadian federal governments in the international team effort to monitor and protect the last remaining natural population of the Whooping Crane (Grus americana).

The so-called “Wood Buffalo-Aransas” population is the only remaining group of Whooping Cranes that has continued to nest, migrate, and overwinter in the traditional areas where they were first documented by Western ornithologists. The entire Whooping Crane species consists of only 437 wild individuals among four populations, three of which were artificially reared and reintroduced to the wild, plus 162 individuals in captivity (as of 2011). However, the only surviving remnant of the naturally-occurring Whooping Crane population is the Wood Buffalo-Aransas flock, consisting of only 283 individuals (as of the winter of 2011-12). This is the only group of Whooping Cranes that has managed to continually pass on the traditional ways of life of this species, in an unbroken chain of chick-rearing and parenting by birds that can live more than 30 years in the wild.

The vital nesting grounds lie in the vast Wood Buffalo National Park, the largest national park in Canada. The park is an immense area, a sprawling 17,300 square miles (44,807 km²), spanning northeastern Alberta into the southern Northwest Territories. Amazingly, Wood Buffalo National Park is larger than nine US states.

The equally vital wintering grounds lie in southern Texas, along the Gulf of Mexico. In winter, Whooping Cranes are seafood aficionados, preying on blue crabs and clams in the brackish Gulf Coast marshes. Aransas National Wildlife Refuge, near Rockport, TX, is one of the few areas of protected public property where people can reliably visit and expect to see these rare and special birds. This is also the exact area where Hurricane Harvey came ashore as a powerful Category 4 storm on 26 August 2017, with sustained winds of 130 mph (209 km/h). Hurricane Harvey went on to set records for both the astounding amounts of rainfall in the Houston metropolitan area, as well as the cost of the damage inflicted to human structures. The storm is currently tied with 2005’s Hurricane Katrina as the costliest tropical cyclone to hit the United States. Luckily, the Whooping Crane population was still up in Canada when the storm hit." From link below.

celltracktech.com/portfolio/whooping-cranes/