I don’t think it is a secret that my husband loves birds. Birds in the backyard (of which we currently have zero), birds migrating in the sky, birds sitting on power lines as we drive by at 70mph, and especially rare birds within driving distance of our home. This is our whooping crane adventure.

The whooping crane, the tallest North American bird, is an endangered crane species named for its whooping sound. It is one of only two crane species found in North America. There is an estimate of only 400+ left in the wild and we saw 3 of them. They established a winter home at Granger Lake in December, outside of Austin, and Ethan heard the news. We all headed out searching for the cranes. It wasn’t hard to spot them based on the collection of old people and scopes. We followed the crowd and got a peek at a pretty cool piece of nature. And as a bonus, we spotted a bald eagle sitting in a tall tree. Pretty amazing even for us who aren’t totally consumed with birds.

Don’t let these photos fool you. The girls took one or two looks and then played in the dirt for 30 minutes.

This is a photo through a telescope. We could see it a bit more clear with the scope, but it sure made me wish Ethan had one of those really expensive scopes to see them crystal clear. To my surprise though, many an old lady asked to see the cranes through his scope and were impressed with the view. He must know what he is doing.