I am sitting in a beautiful spot in the Tennessee River Valley watching the sun rise and 10,000 Sandhill Cranes fall on the stubble fields from the corn recently harvested on the refuge.  This crane haven is Hiwassee Wildlife Refuge, and is a major stop for not only Sandhills, but quite a few of our Whooping Cranes as well.  Of course unlike Sandhills, “quite a few” Whooping Cranes at the moment means seven.

The birds I had been tracking (including DAR chick #38-09) are still back in the same spot in Indiana, and they weren’t looking like they were going much of anywhere for awhile either.  I watched them for two days before I was called away to search for #17-02 who we suspected had been injured or killed in northern Indiana.  Eva had been tracking by plane and spotted the male of the pair alone, while his mate’s signal came from several miles away. Not a good sign.  Unfortunately, I was able to locate #17-02's body, and I sent her up to the health lab for necropsy.  It is always sad to lose a crane, and especially when she represents a significant number of this small population, this particular bird is an even harder loss, as she is the parent of the only surviving wild-hatched chick in this population. 

After driving back down south to check on my birds in their cornfield, it was decided that I should continue to Tennessee and monitor the birds that come through.  The first morning I was here I woke up to a beautiful winter scene as about an inch and a half of snow covered everything and continued to fall.  I didn’t expect that things would get colder the farther south I got!  However, by the afternoon the sun had appeared and melted it all away.  I spend my days exploring the rolling hills and curving country roads that twist around the river and its inlets, looking for cranes.  Out of the seven birds that are currently here, only four of them have working transmitters, so it's up to my eyes, rather than my ears to find the rest.

One of my favorite parts about being a tracker is that I get to talk to folks about the project, and often I am stopped by people asking why I have a giant antenna on my vehicle.  In the past couple days I have been especially privileged to talk to several groups of school kids from Chattanooga and areas surrounding the refuge.  Even though most of the kids live a half hour or less from the refuge, less than half of them had visited before.  They were so interested in learning about tracking and Whooping Cranes in general that they wanted to stay outside shivering in the cold, rather than go in.  It's fantastic to see the enthusiasm in our next generation of wildlife professionals!

Update by Jess Thompson, ICF Tracking Intern.