| Oldest Crane of Known
Age
Hatched
in 1978, the
Lobstick male is our oldest wild Whooping crane of a known age.
Wild Whooping cranes can live into their 40s.
How
do we know how old
the
Lobstick male is? When he was a young chick about
70 days old and still unable to fly, two biologists ran out
from a helicopter and grabbed him. They placed bands on his
legs. These
bands stayed in place for 20 years. Then they finally fell off.
However, a crane pair is still using the same Lobstick
marshes for nesting in Canada. A crane pair is still wintering at the first tour boat stop at Aransas.
Is one of those cranes the Lobstick male?
Proof He's Still Alive
A
German researcher a few years ago proved the male was still alive by recording the
calls of the now-unbanded
male. He compared them with similar calls recorded
back when Lobstick was still banded. The recordings matched! Voice prints are unique to each crane, just as human fingerprints
are unique to each person. These bird voice prints are called sonograms,
which are pictures of sound waves.
Biologist Brian
Johns records crane calls
on the flock's nesting grounds in Canada.
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