Letter to the Editor; Whooping crane sighted near Sylvan Lake

To the Editor:

First it was pelicans. Now, a Whooping Crane has been sighted in the meadows just east of Sylvan Lake. Yesterday, May 29, at about 7:30 p.m., we were driving west on Laney Brothers Road when we saw the crane on the road that crosses from Laney Brothers Rd. over to Crab Creek about one-fourth of a mile east of the lake. This is the same spot where we have seen about 40 American White Pelicans in years past. There is a drying pond there and I imagine the fish are plentiful and easy to catch at this time of year, so it attracts the birds.

Having seen the pelicans there with my binoculars, I could see this solitary white bird was very tall. Twice as tall as the pelicans, at least. When we stopped our truck, it flew west, low, over the pond and meadow to the lake. I didn’t have time to get the glasses on it, but it was very tall and had black wing tips.

The flyway of the Whooping Crane, an endangered species, making its way slowly back from near extinction, is from Alberta, Canada, south to Texas, generally. However, a spokesman for the Whooping Crane Association told me by email, that a mating pair has been sighted in central British Columbia. He also said Whooping Cranes are sometimes found in company with Sandhill Cranes. Also, there is a Sandhill Crane refuge at Gray’s Lake, Idaho, near Idaho Falls, where they have been hatching Whooping Crane eggs and introducing the cranes to the wild since the 1970s, so the birds have been introduced west of the Rocky Mountains and could be sighted from time to time.

I’m almost certain it was a Whooping Crane. The only other bird of such size would be the Wood Ibis, but the Wood Ibis has black flight feathers all along the wings. The bird I saw had the black only on the flight feathers at the tips of the wings.

By the way, I’ve seen the pelicans, recently. At the lake below Billy Clapp near Stratford, a large group of them was fishing in a circle near the east edge of the lake. Lisa Ott has seen them at Irby, too. Gosh, I wish we could get some good, or, even adequate pictures.

Hey, not to mention the nesting Bald Eagle pair off of Highway 28. Yes, you can see them from the highway. This is the second year I’ve noticed them. Two years ago, I saw a Bald Eagle with a pair of vultures and copious other birds, such as ravens, on the carcass of a road-killed deer off of Highway 21 near Schlimmer Road. It’s a wilderness.

Kathie Donahue

Odessa