69 On the migration battlefwnt 



areas are extensive and difficult for one or two observers to cover 

 from one end to the other. In spite of their conspicuous white 

 plumage and great size, it is surprising how easily you can miss 

 spotting two or three whooping cranes within a large area of 

 wilderness of varied character and topography. They might hide 

 in any one of these places for two or three days at a stretch with- 

 out being reported. At any rate, on the ninth, which was too soon 

 to expect any of them to reach the Platte, for by then I had had 

 no reports of departures from Texas, I drove to Ogallala and talked 

 with Loren Bunney, a state game warden and old hunter. He 

 lived as a boy in Harlan County south of Holdrege, Nebraska, be- 

 tween the Republican and Platte Rivers. At the age of ten he 

 started hunting, "some fifty years ago," and even at that time 

 (around 1897) whooping cranes, he told me, were a rare sight, 

 although his home was within the main migration pathway of that 

 period. Now and then he saw one of "the big white ones" in a 

 flock of sandhills, and sometimes, back in those days, a flock of 

 24 or 25 whoopers flying together. But as a rule they traveled in 

 groups of 2, 4, or 6. He said that although his work took him up 

 and down the length of the Platte, he had observed "very few 

 white ones" in the past twenty years. 



Late that afternoon, back at my headquarters, a message awaited 

 me from a radio listener who reported "a white crane in a flock 

 of sandhills two miles south and two miles west of Hershey." 

 At 5:10 P.M. I had located the sandhill flock and, sure enough, 

 there was a white bird among them. It was another snow goose! 



The next day I received Olaf's wire advising that four of his 

 flock had been missing since April 6 or 7. I sent telegrams at once 

 to all of my contacts up and down the river and called up Charlie 

 Craig, the announcer at station KODY, and asked him to flash the 

 news over the air on his twelve- thirty broadcast of the eleventh. 

 Our little army of observers was now alerted. From Eddie Brown 

 in Kearney I had a return telegram advising that he and his wife 

 were flying their light plane as far east as Great Bend every day. 

 I had already arranged to fly the western segment with John 

 Clinch, manager of the North Platte airport. 



By April 11, nine cranes were in flight somewhere between 



