Survival Mode

I arrived in Port Aransas in the middle of the morning on Wednesday, February 10, 2021. As expected, I encountered one of the local birders running the weekly walk at the Leonabelle Turnbull Birding Center, informing tourists about the feathered creatures who use the water treatment facility as a place to hunt, bathe and drink. The man recognized me and immediately began speaking with a purpose.

"The Whooping Cranes were right behind our house when we left," he said. "If you run over there, you might get a really close look at 'em." He told me exactly where he lived, and I wheeled around to take his advice. Within minutes, I had located the three birds in his neighborhood, which fronts a famous sanctuary known as Charlie's Pasture.

Home to many wading birds, gulls, shorebirds and other creatures, the sanctuary contains several expansive, sandy tidal flats, a few mangrove tangles and lots of low brush and bushes. The site provides the right kind of habitat for Whooping Cranes, albeit a small number of them. The endangered cranes have recently begun expanding their range to places like Port Aransas when they come to Texas to ride out the winter.

The adult birds I saw that morning had shown up for the first time at Charlie's Pasture in 2019. In the fall of 2020, they returned, bringing one of their offspring with them. Adult whoopers care for their colts for about a year, before pushing them off on their own. This behavior attests to the difficulties these kinds of creatures endure in their efforts to survive and thrive.

Numbers of Whooping Cranes dwindled down to just 21 birds in 1941; they faced almost certain extinction without some kind of effective human intervention. Now, they've rebounded significantly, and several hundred of them breed in the remote Wood Buffalo National Park in Canada during summer, then spend the cold season on the coastal prairies and marshes of the Lone Star State. For many nature lovers, Whooping Cranes serve as sentinels of hope and symbols of the potential power of conservation efforts.

I felt thrilled and privileged to photograph the three Port Aransas birds on that warm winter morning. While I watched, maybe forty yards away, they paraded around purposefully, leaning forward and plucking bean-sized red berries from leafy, green plants. Such a close encounter with the birds elevated my appreciation of their beauty, grace and strength. I drove away from them feeling good about the general state of things.

The next day, a bitter blast of arctic air sent temperatures across the state plummeting, initiating one of the most severe cold snaps recorded in Texas over the last half-century. The death toll ran high. Millions of fish, birds, crustaceans and other creatures froze to death during the week-long event. People perished too.

During the big chill, I felt hopeless. An ominous fear dominated my mindset, and I pitied myself as I watched water temperatures decline to a point low enough to cause significant loss of life in and around our coastal waters. Piles of dead fish don't do fishing guides much good. At the lowest of my low points, I realized I needed to do something to push back against the heavy hand we'd been dealt.

Partly so I could look into the eyes of creatures who had it worse than I did, I convinced my friend Jason King to put his Shallow Sport in the water, so we could rescue some of the many thousands of stranded, cold-stunned sea turtles. Over the next two days, in the midst of the horrible weather, we managed to bring a couple dozen of the reptiles to safe haven, turning them over to the folks who'd set up temporary housing for them at Padre Island National Seashore.

Helping the turtles helped me. Doing something to preserve life in such dire circumstances lifted my spirits somewhat, restored some semblance of hope to my sagging spirit. But I grew gravely concerned for the Port Aransas cranes. They survive mostly by catching and eating blue crabs, the vast majority of which had perished within three or four days of the start of the arctic blast. And after temperatures dipped below twenty degrees, even on the barrier islands, no fruit remained on the shrubs for the birds to eat.

I and many others began to wonder how the whoopers would survive, or even IF they could survive such a sudden, severe weather event. I went to Port Aransas twice, before the icy fingers of winter released their deadly grip, but I saw no cranes in Charlie's Pasture. Other worried birders reported the same experience.

But then, a single video swept all our fears away. One of the members of our community located the three birds and used his camera to document their behavior as the weather turned a corner and warmed just a bit. What he recorded still amazes me. His clips revealed the sturdy strength of these magnificent birds in a most inspiring way.

In it, we see one of the adult birds (I suspect the female, but there's no way to say for sure) stalking around on a flooded sand flat, in water about two inches deep. The lanky creature moves with improbable and impressive agility and grace, obviously looking for a potential meal in the water. For several seconds, the bird's gait begins to resemble that of a Reddish Egret; loping and prancing, wings held open, the hunter picks up speed before suddenly stopping and staring down to the side.

In a flash, the whooper strikes at something moving past its feet, extending its neck forcefully down, snatching a large mullet, then raising its head triumphantly, almost proudly displaying the wiggling fish. To dispatch its prey, the whooper then trots toward dry land, slams the silver fish onto the sand and smacks it repeatedly with its beak. At that moment, the colt appears on the screen.

The successful parent begins pulling strips of flesh off the side of the fresh dead fish, offering them to its offspring. While this unfolds, the other adult whooper arrives, standing tall and scanning the horizon, watching for signs of danger, ready to alert its family members to the presence of any approaching threat.

I'll admit it. I cried watching the movie. Stirred so dramatically by what I'd seen, I felt almost ashamed to have underestimated these versatile, adaptable, resilient creatures. I doubt a whooper could catch a mullet easily in most circumstances, and I don't think they relish the idea of eating one. But, sometimes, in desperate situations, in order to survive, living creatures do what they know they have to do.

My level of respect for Whooping Cranes reached a zenith. The fear and self-pity I'd been feeling largely fell away. Over the time that's passed since then, I've come to realize something simple and profound, a concept reinforced by what I witnessed over those frigid days and by the events captured in the video of the hunting crane. The lesson relates most closely to those of us who love chasing trophy trout with lures, a pursuit which often places us on the water during the dead of winter.

Sometimes, catching fish in winter feels stupid easy. Fluctuating water temperatures cause fish to feed in rapidly changing cycles. Often, when they eat, they do so with ravenous appetites. But the opposite is also true. After they gorge, and when water temperatures decline rapidly, trout can become nearly impossible to catch.

Some people have no interest in working hard to catch a fish, particularly when doing so requires bundling up in layers to stave off the effects of icy wind and water. But others recognize the ripe potential for catching big trout when uncomfortable weather makes them more predictable than normal. And these folks often find themselves in situations which feel bleak, and which call for desperate measures.

Those of us who've logged many days on the water during the months of December, January and February have experienced the sensation. On some days, we head out with a positive outlook, expecting reasonably comfortable weather and a relatively easy bite. But, while we stand and grind, immersed in the chilling brine, harsh north winds begin to whistle a haunting dirge, reinforcing the effects of a recent front. Rather than rise as expected, temperatures remain steady and low, or worse, they begin to fall.

In times like those, we turn our backs to the wind and pull our hoods up over our heads. One thing becomes crystal clear—we won't catch a fish unless we accept facts, act with resolve and adjust our methods to meet the needs of the moment. Most of us don't relish the idea of dragging a worm across the bottom at a snail's pace; we'd much rather walk the dog on top or wiggle a twitchbait through the middle of the water column.

But harsh winter conditions have no capacity to care what we want. Mother Nature acts without malice; she also shows no mercy. In the worst-case scenarios, she can kill cranes, wreck homes and crush anglers' hopes. Luckily, as humans, our lives don't depend on our ability to catch a fish when frigid weather makes things seem hopeless. Nevertheless, when Old Man Winter flashes his sternest face, we should remember the story of the brave cranes and channel their spirit. We should do what we know we have to do―shift into survival mode.