55 The whoopers still dance 



found whole yellow corn completely irresistible! For the remainder 

 of the winter I was able to watch these birds at close range at any 

 time I wished to do so; although it was usually necessary to creep 

 into my blind in the early hours before they came in to feed from 

 their night roost across the pond. As a result of this happy situa- 

 tion, I was able to provide both Roger Tory Peterson and Allan 

 Cruickshank with a perfect setup for the fine photographs they 

 secured of this family when they visited the refuge a few weeks 

 later. 



Of course the chief purpose of the bait-and-blind combination, 

 from my point of view, was to observe, in detail, such important 

 activities and developments as care, feeding, and weaning of the 

 young, prenuptial dances of the adults, territorial defense, plumage 

 changes, and a host of other manifestations in the daily life of the 

 whooping crane. I have seldom known such high moments as 

 those I spent perched quietly behind my burlap, with one of the 

 biggest, rarest, and most wary birds in the world going about the 

 business of everyday life only 150 feet away. I had to move about 

 inside my shelter with the greatest caution and suppress every 

 threatening cough or sneeze. Sometimes I sat there for ten hours 

 at a stretch. It was worth it! I saw the whooping crane on terms 

 that I had never dreamed possible and that few, if any, had ever 

 experienced before me. 



The fact that this Middle Family had taken over the best terri- 

 tory on the entire wintering grounds was an indication of the 

 superiority of these two birds, especially of the vigor and boldness 

 of the male. He was an unusually handsome specimen, with a 

 fierce yellow eye, deep carmine skin on his noble crown, and a 

 glistening black "mustache" across his lower face. His satiny 

 plumage was superb, the lovely, plumelike tertials fluffing out over 

 his tail with all the haughty male-ish grandeur of a seventeenth- 

 century cavalier. And, indeed, except for the extreme solicitude 

 he displayed toward his mate and offspring, his demeanor was 

 nothing if not cavalier in itself. If another whooping crane from 

 an adjoining area stepped over into what the Middle gentleman 

 felt was his realm, his head went up and he sounded his thrilling 

 challenge at once. Ker-lool Ker-lee-ool His mate joined in these 



