Seventh trip to Texas. This time, I started northeast of Aransas near El Campo, in the Garwood Prairie region. Here, whoopers have been pioneering new winter territories inland in more agricultural settings, with a mix of rice-crawfish farms, corn, pasture, and waterfowl hunting areas that help protect the wetlands. It might be a sign of things to come.

I spent time with Clint Faas of Texas Parks and Wildlife. I hunted waterfowl with Clint and a couple of friends, and then we took a day-long tour. We located six whoopers: three singles—one marked (15E-R-Y-R), now called “El Campo”—and a family group. I experienced the “Whooper Party Line,” as Clint called it, when he phoned one landowner after another who had been keeping an eye on the birds and providing updates.

Later in the season, the chick from the family group hit a power line and died. Clint found them by chance and made an important series of frames of the carcass in situ. The power company might now be putting up diverters. R-Y-R tracking shows she was back and forth to Aransas several times—lingering for days, then returning to Garwood Prairie.

At Aransas, I photographed big prescribed burns with towering smoke clouds and whoopers and other birdlife from Kevin’s boat. I also photographed a pair of unmarked whoopers with twins who visited the Lamar deer feeders at least once a day. I saw two sets of twins on this trip—uncommon on wintering grounds and even more so this year, given low recruitment success in Wood Buffalo earlier in the summer.

On a late January trip co-leading a Summit photo workshop, we captured whoopers flounder fishing at low tide and introduced the group to the whooper male Gray-Green, whom I first photographed last February. He’s one of Lori and Kevin’s favorites because he’s very attentive to his chicks and does a lot of the feeding.

I mounted camera traps on feeders and slept on the floor in Diane’s silversmith studio at Johnson Ranch. Every day, I got to see YAY and NAY, the longtime whooper couple who’ve claimed the ranch as their winter territory. These birds have never had chicks with them but have been returning to this locale for almost 20 years.