Ed Markel called today with a story about seeing 17 huge white birds on a wheat field that borders his Stafford County farm. He sees a lot of wildlife every year but the tone in his voice said these were special.
Ed is one of many inflicted with whooper mania in the past few days.
The past week has probably offered the best whooping crane viewing in modern times at the Cheyenne Bottoms Wildlife Area and the Quivira National Wildlife Refuge.
The past week has offered some of the best whooping crane viewing at Cheyenne Bottoms and Quivira in memory. These three cranes photographed by Bob Gress were some of the 28 he saw last Friday. Photo by Bob Gress.
The birds were first seen by a hunter at Cheyenne Bottoms on Nov. 1. When word got out about last Thursday people from all across Kansas and several other states traveled to take a look.
And the looking has been great.
Some birders spending part of a day at both marshes had seen 30 or more whooping cranes.
Quivira’s Pete Meggers said the birds have often been seen in flocks of 15 or more. Most years they’re seen from one to six in a bunch.
As of this morning up to 30 had been seen at Cheyenne Bottoms. Meggers said at least 18 had been on Quivira today.
That makes 71 different whooping cranes he’s documented using Quivira this fall. The previous record was 62 birds. If the birds at Cheyenne Bottoms happen to stop at Quivira on their way southward that could put the number close to 90 or 100.
That’s an amazing number since there are about 270 wild whooping cranes within the population that migrates through Kansas. That number is down from previous years because about 20 whoopers starved in south Texas last winter. Reproduction was also below average last spring and summer.
All forms of hunting have been stopped at Quivira until the cranes move southward. Pools the birds are using at Cheyenne Bottoms, currently 3A and 3B, are also closed to hunting.
Not all of the attention given to the birds has been positive. Karl Grover, Cheyenne Bottoms manager, knew of at least two instances when wildlife watchers approached too close and spooked flocks of whoopers.
As of an hour ago both wetlands still had birds.
On the subject of Cheyenne Bottoms, the world-renouned wetland lost one of its greatest champions today when Jan Garton died in Manhattan. Back in the 1980s Garton was a ring-leader of a public revolt that stopped the state of Kansas from basically letting the bottoms go dry.
The effort led to restoring Cheyenne Bottom’s priority water rights.
Hopefully those who’ve recently enjoyed seeing the whooping cranes at Cheyenne Bottoms will be appreciative of the actions of Garton and others and also the huge amounts of sportsmen’s dollars that have almost exclusively supported the area for decades.
