67 On the migration battlefront 



few miles and melt the ice that formed on the windshield by warm- 

 ing it with my bare hands. In spare moments I gave talks to the 

 Lions Club, the North Platte Bird Club, and other groups. It 

 was a busy five weeks. 



Through the special interest of Joe DiNatali of radio station 

 KODY (Buffalo Bill's ranch was on the outskirts of North Platte), 

 a spot was given to whooping cranes during the noon news broad- 

 cast each day. Many people heard of my project on their radios 

 who wouldn't have known of it otherwise. It was a casual, chatty 

 presentation by the regular newscaster, beginning with some such 

 opening remark as, "Well, let's see what the news is today on the 

 whooping crane. I know that lots of you folks want to hear how 

 many of these rare birds have left Texas and if any have shown up so 

 far along the Platte. Well now, as of yesterday . . . ," etc. These 

 broadcasts had just the right tone and attracted a lot of attention. 

 They proved to be a tremendous help. 



All this time, nearly 1,000 miles to the south, in Texas, Olaf 

 was covering the entire mainland range so as to watch for de- 

 partures. I kept in touch with him by telegraph. On April 7 the 

 Dike Pair had disappeared, and on the ninth, the Middle Pair. It 

 was like hearing of the departures of old friends. On April 11 he 

 was unable to locate the Middle Family and the Bay Pair. Then, 

 on April 14, all of them had evidently cleared out except for two 

 "singles" that did not migrate. At his end, Olaf was in a sweat for 

 fear he had merely overlooked some of the birds, and at my end 

 I was in just as bad a sweat for fear I wouldn't be in the right place 

 at the right time! 



With some friends from North Platte, I drove late one after- 

 noon up the river toward Hershey, where little brown cranes came 

 in at dusk to roost on the willow-grown sandbars. After feeding all 

 day in stubble fields for miles around, these smaller and far more 

 abundant cranes fly by easy stages toward their roosting places. At 

 3:15 P.M. we saw several thousand settled in pastures and stubble 

 some five miles west of North Platte. Thousands more were in the 

 air, and the mingled sound of their gutteral voices could be heard 

 at a considerable distance (I frequently heard them when I was in 

 my hotel room as they were passing over the city). Some of the 



