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| Hooded crane at Hiwassee photo by John Kuehnel. |
The rare Asian hooded crane first reported at Hiwassee Wildlife Refuge the Tuesday before Christmas was still there the Monday after. A short 90-mile car trip added it to our life lists, whether it's an ABA-approved listing or not can be sorted out later.
The TWRA managed, 10,000 plus acre refuge shared by Meigs and Rhea counties in southeast Tennessee is already home to thousands of wintering sandhill cranes, a few reintroduced wintering whooping cranes and at least for now, one solo, lost, confused hooded crane, a species listed as endangered...in Asia and non-existent in the Americas. Non-existent in the wild except for this one. Do I hear the mournful strains of Roy Orbison's Only the Lonely?
Sandhill, whooping, hooded: three crane species at one time in North America. That's a day to remember! Historic.
Sandhill, whooping, hooded: three crane species at one time in North America. That's a day to remember! Historic.
Speculation and teeth chattered throughout Hiwassee's viewing gazebo and the Internet.
Is it truly a far-flung wild hooded on the wrong continent or an escaped captive on a lark from an American zoo or mac-zillionaire's secret menagerie? The species has only been reported THREE times in North America, all recent: 1) in 2010 at Carey Lake, Idaho, 2) last spring in Nebraska, and now, 3) the Hiwassee refuge in Tennessee Christmas 2011.
Could it be the same wayward crane going from place-to-place in the company of sandhills? Gallivanting like Gulliver. Meandering like Muir.
Backstory: The Hooded Crane (Grus monacha) is a small, dark crane with white head. It breeds in south-central and south-eastern Siberia and perhaps in Mongolia. (Yes. Siberia and Mongolia. So our Tennessee crane is perhaps most assuredly lost. The other side of the world lost, like me at Saks Fifth Avenue lost.)
Over 80 percent of its population overwinters in Izumi in southern Japan. Considered as environmentally vulnerable, the major threats to the hooded crane's survival are wetland loss throughout its range and the degradation of its other wintering grounds in China and South Korea as a result of reclamation for development and dam building.
As I post this, John Vanderpoel is headed to Hiwassee in hope of seeing the wayward crane. Vanderpoel is working on a Big Year, trying to break the record of finding 745 species in North America set by Sandy Komito in 1998. Vanderpoel currently has 741 with time running out in the calendar year. For the record, he needs five more species in four days, but in that rarefied air of the 700 Club, even in a field of play that stretches from sea to shining sea, that's a Mt. Everest kind of climb. We're cheering for you John.
For more details go to his blog: Big Year 2011.
Thanks Bill for giving me the heads up on the hooded at Hiwassee.
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Is it truly a far-flung wild hooded on the wrong continent or an escaped captive on a lark from an American zoo or mac-zillionaire's secret menagerie? The species has only been reported THREE times in North America, all recent: 1) in 2010 at Carey Lake, Idaho, 2) last spring in Nebraska, and now, 3) the Hiwassee refuge in Tennessee Christmas 2011.
Could it be the same wayward crane going from place-to-place in the company of sandhills? Gallivanting like Gulliver. Meandering like Muir.
Backstory: The Hooded Crane (Grus monacha) is a small, dark crane with white head. It breeds in south-central and south-eastern Siberia and perhaps in Mongolia. (Yes. Siberia and Mongolia. So our Tennessee crane is perhaps most assuredly lost. The other side of the world lost, like me at Saks Fifth Avenue lost.)
Over 80 percent of its population overwinters in Izumi in southern Japan. Considered as environmentally vulnerable, the major threats to the hooded crane's survival are wetland loss throughout its range and the degradation of its other wintering grounds in China and South Korea as a result of reclamation for development and dam building.
As I post this, John Vanderpoel is headed to Hiwassee in hope of seeing the wayward crane. Vanderpoel is working on a Big Year, trying to break the record of finding 745 species in North America set by Sandy Komito in 1998. Vanderpoel currently has 741 with time running out in the calendar year. For the record, he needs five more species in four days, but in that rarefied air of the 700 Club, even in a field of play that stretches from sea to shining sea, that's a Mt. Everest kind of climb. We're cheering for you John.
For more details go to his blog: Big Year 2011.
Thanks Bill for giving me the heads up on the hooded at Hiwassee.
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| Sandhill cranes. Photo by Manjith Kainickara. |
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