43 A giant of beauty and grandeur 



there. Another group, which had been feeding the evening before in 

 a pond just to the east, was not visible at all. It was misty, and 

 visibility was lousy. Besides this, our spotting scope, set up quite 

 conveniently on its tripod, was also getting soaked, and very shortly 

 we had nothing dry about us for wiping off the lenses. 



It was some months, and many similar drenchings and disap- 

 pointments, later that we learned the story of the whooping cranes' 

 winter territories and understood what to expect with regard to 

 their daily habits. Jim Stevenson, the first refuge manager at Aran- 

 sas, Earl Craven, and others who had worked there with the birds 

 noted the tendency of pairs and family groups to remain for an en- 

 tire winter season within the invisible boundaries of a selected area. 

 Only drought or other habitat failure would ordinarily cause them 

 to desert, although when the high grass and live-oak brush on a 

 section of cattle range was burned to produce fresh growth, the 

 whoopers, as well as small flocks of sandhill cranes, frequently 

 came to these blackened areas for the acorns that were exposed 

 and for other special delicacies. In the course of two winters, by 

 careful observations and repeated mapping, we decided that under 

 normal conditions each family or pair, with or without young, oc- 

 cupied a distinct territory that approximated some 400 acres of true 

 salt flats, including ponds and estuaries. Territorial claims were 

 made soon after birds arrived from the northern breeding grounds, 

 but were not defended with vigor until after the entire flock was in, 

 for the pairs with new young in tow were the last to arrive and 

 invariably grabbed and successfully defended the most valuable 

 territories. 



The best territories are almost 100 per cent salt flat, like the 

 one at Middle Pond which is the area chosen by any cranes who 

 fail to join in the spring migration as sometimes happens and 

 who spend the entire summer on the refuge, with freedom to pick 

 and choose any territory they wish. Less desirable areas have a 

 certain percentage of oak brush on the higher ground; but this is 

 really a matter of contour lines, for oak brush doesn't flourish be- 

 low the three-foot mark. All of the fourteen territories that we stud- 

 ied and mapped had frontages on one of the bays, and these vary 

 in width from about one mile to slightly less than half that dis- 



