I started with blind work in the wet meadows along the Platte, but no whoopers. Instead, I filmed a pair of mallards and a chorus frog singing their spring song for the first time. Then I headed north into the Nebraska Sandhills, and with help from biologist Dave Brandt and telemetry data, daughter Elsa and I intercepted several banded birds—including Brutus (Black-Blue-Black), another telemetry bird (Green-Red-Green) that Dave called “Christmas Tree,” and a family group I call the Dunhams, named after their winter territory on Dunham Point along the Blackjack Peninsula at Aransas (parents Yellow-Gray-Yellow and Black-Yellow-Black, and their chick of the year, Gray-Red-Gray). They were the first family I photographed at Aransas, back in December 2019.

There were also seven other unbanded whoopers here, likely subadults or unmated adults. All the whoopers were feasting on leopard frogs in the wetlands and corn in the uplands during a weeklong stay, roosting in the wetlands near a section corner with a center pivot nearby. The singles roosted together, and the family group roosted separately.