52 On the trail of vanishing birds 



mile beyond Andreas. At that point we went off with Olaf 

 Wallmo, who was now assisting me in the field, and tended to 

 other business. During the afternoon, after nearly turning over our 

 truck getting past Jones Lake, we bogged down close to the head 

 of Mustang Lake, nearly 10 miles from where Andreas, for all we 

 knew, was by now being chased all over the marsh by that real 

 bull. 



Feeling suddenly concerned, we sat down to wait, while Olaf 

 walked up the beach to Dagger Point for a tractor to pull us out of 

 the mud. It was very late when we got back to camp. There was 

 Andreas, safe and sound, but pretty well tuckered out after a weary 

 and entirely unprofitable nine hours in the blind. He never even 

 saw a whooping crane the whole time. At dark it looked as if we 

 might have rain, and there was a gusty wind from the south dur- 

 ing the night. The next morning it was do or die. Again we went 

 out on the marsh before daylight, moving the blind to a more 

 favorable spot. I wrote in my notes: "As we were working on it 

 the fog lifted a little and the South Family group, already back 

 on their feeding flats, saw us and started calling. We flopped, then 

 managed to get Andreas inside the blind while Bobby and I 

 crawled off on our bellies. However, with no apparent suspicion 

 of Bovus absurdus, the whoopers came right on, and a short while 

 later trooped past Andreas in single file. Then Andreas got ex- 

 cited and tried to follow them, dragging Bovus along through the 

 grass. They sounded an alarm and have been on the alert since. 

 Andreas, at the first note, froze dead in his tracks. Bovus is teeter- 

 ing slightly to port and the whoopers are still calling several ver- 

 sions, all alarm notes and are walking away in their stately 

 fashion. The light conditions are nothing to scream about." 



One good picture was all Andreas got, and it subsequently ap- 

 peared in Life in the issue of March 3, 1947. I know that An- 

 dreas, who is one of the best of photographers, didn't think much 

 of it, but it is one of the few pictures we have of a family of whoop- 

 ing cranes (the young bird's head and upper neck still show the 

 rusty shading of immaturity) striding across the marsh sounding 

 their magnificent call. 



In 1947 we returned to Aransas from our first Northern 



