Fourth trip to Texas. After a month of planning and watching telemetry data on roost sites with Dave Brandt, we picked a spot for a small tent blind at a roost site on Aransas NWR property. My goal was to document whoopers overnight on a roost in the salt marsh—something rarely documented before. Later that trip, I used the blind, and it was a success. I photographed our target bird, White-Red-White, which I nicknamed “Husker Red,” modified from local boat guide Lori Sims, who called the bird “Red.”

I also photographed more crane trapping with Dave and Wade Harrell (then whooping crane lead for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service) on the Welder Ranch—an anchor property in a mix of private and state lands with high-quality habitats and expanding wintering whooper populations.

I retrieved the camera trap from the salt marsh with Dave. It captured images of coyotes, feral hogs, and sandhill cranes—but no whoopers.