Fourth trip to Wisconsin. I arrived at County U Road just as the male whooper and his sister were dropping out of the sky from migration. They had left western Kentucky a few days earlier. I got word they were moving and arrived at the County U Road location exactly when they did. The landscape was still covered in snow.

They quickly exerted dominance in the valley by chasing sandhill crane pairs to the margins and copulated several times. His preferred female had not shown up, and her transmitter was no longer working. She was feared dead—either from complications related to an injury suffered last summer or from the massive tornadoes that had ravaged their winter territory in western Kentucky months earlier.

I spent time at the Leopold Foundation along the Wisconsin River, photographing sandhill cranes on the roost. I had hoped for whoopers but was grateful for the beauty nonetheless.

George’s wife, Kyoko, died the morning I was on the river after a brief but intense battle with cancer. He called me an hour after she passed. I dedicated the morning’s photos to her