Image of Whooping crane

Description:

This family group (two adults, one juvenile) of Whoopers was discovered by Chuck Sexton Feb. 18, 2014 at Granger Lake, Williamson Co., Texas, about 25 miles north of Austin. I went out there with Chuck this morning to try to get some images since one of the adults was color banded and we wanted to be able to provide USFWS with the band information for possible individual recognition. We could get no closer than perhaps 1/3 of a mile from the birds but with 1000 mm of telephoto I got some useable images. A few years ago several Whoopers, perhaps some of these same birds, spend much of the winter at this same location.