The Whooping Crane's Grief

The Whooping Crane's Grief
(word count: 1087)

On the wetlands beside San Antonio Bay, a stately Whooping Crane slowly paced back and forth, searching for crayfish and frogs.  Beside him, other Whooping Cranes waded through the shallows and snapped up bites of food.  They flew back to nearby nests to feed their fledglings, but the largest of the Cranes didn't take morsels of food to gaping little gullets.  For the first time in nearly twenty years, his nest was empty, barren.  His beautiful, snow white mate had not survived the long migration from the north.  One fall morning the flock took flight on the next leg of their journey, but he had been unable to wake her. 

The Crane had kept watch over her still alabaster form for many days.  Curious foxes and a lurking wolf had been too timid to approach the five foot guard.  No anxious proddings, no offerings of food had been able to rouse her from her silent sleep.  After some time, she lost the aroma that marked her as his mate, and another more fetid odor took its place.  Finally, lonely and despairing, the giant Whooping Crane had followed its fellows toward the south.

Once the Crane reached the winter breeding grounds, his loneliness deepened.  He watched other males strut and preen during their courtship dances.  He watched exuberant mating flights and intimate couplings.  He watched proud pairs settle onto ground level nests and begin to brood.  And he fell victim to a different kind of brooding.  Melancholy wrapped itself around him and squeezed until his heart bled.  The tranquil marsh seemed too small to contain his flooding sorrow.  He spread his wings and flew away, out of the wetlands, in search of other places where different aromas and colors might ease the emptiness inside him.

White wings effortlessly soared over human lands.  Trees, ribbons of black asphalt, houses, green meadows and gardens peppered the Crane's vision.  One particularly luscious garden arose in his memory; one which had always offered special treats.  He glided above the houses until he found his favorite one.  He swooped past the house, to the backyard and settled onto a children's swing set. 

The Crane gazed down upon the riderless swings, the off-kilter slide and a rickety red seesaw.  They had seen better days.  Rust had chewed up their metal legs.  They squeaked when they moved, although only the wind moved them now.  The Crane remembered when two human nestlings had once played and romped in the verdant grass.  Silly, noisy creatures, the little ones had grown big over the years.  After they had fully fledged, they had gone away to new mating grounds of their own, as all younglings are wont to do.  Perhaps out of loneliness, the remaining mother-female had started leaving special treats in the garden: delicious combinations of broken up granola bars and berries.  She would wait on the back terrace and watch him land in the garden at the end of the yard.  If he spent the night in nearby trees, he could be sure that the next morning, new offerings would be waiting for him in her magical plot of land.

The huge Crane had gulped down the tasty morsels and wondered if maybe the mother-female was trying to lure a new mate.  The one that she had was overly aggressive and drank horrid concoctions that made him smell bad.  After drinking too much of the noxious liquid, the male would become even more aggressive and would sometimes harry and harass the female.  The Crane had heard the female's high pitched keening on many occasions.

But now, everything was different.

The Crane looked around in surprise.  Something was wrong with the garden.  Every autumn when the Crane came to visit the human domiciles, the garden in the back of this house had always been the most lush and plentiful.  Glorious colors and succulent smells had risen into the air to welcome him.  Now the only things ripening in the garden were weeds.  And something else was ripening, too. 

The Crane went to investigate a rank smell.  He sidestepped along the top pole of the swing set, almost catching himself up in his plastic leg bracelet, and peered down in curiosity.  The odor of decay was strongest beside the slide.  It oozed up into the air and the ground around it had begun to sink.  As if trying to solve the mystery, the slide had slowly leaned closer to that bit of earth.

During the next few days, the Crane was obsessed with solving the riddle.  There were no treats in the garden, he could neither see nor hear the pleasant mother-female, but the wrathful territorial male had come out several times and thrown things at him.  Instead of showing solemn sadness at the loss of his mate, the human male was vengeful and destructive.  The sensitive Crane abhorred this vile irreverent male.

A smothering feeling of loneliness and isolation descended upon the Crane.  His loyal mate was gone, and now the generous human female was gone, too.  His heart was too heavy to allow him to fly away.  He huddled in the tree branches and lost the will to move. 

Several days later, two humans appeared.  They wore long white coats and carried a strange device in their hands.  They waved it around until it was pointed directly at the Crane.  Then, they got a large net and approached his tree.  He tried to fly away, but his old starved wings couldn't carry him.  Gliding toward the back of the house, he faltered to the ground next to the tilted slide. 

The humans hurried after him.  They captured him in their net, and then they, too, became obsessed with the strange smell.  The humans were very concerned with the smell, and when they investigated, one of them fell right into the sink hole.  What they discovered in the ground next to the slide was the human female, now dead and decaying, just like his lost mate .  He lay quietly on the ground and watched as more blue-clothed humans arrived in a whistling car.  They were very upset by the dead thing in the ground and went up to the house and captured the human male.  The male struggled violently, but was forced into the car and taken away. 

The Crane was also taken away.  He arrived at an animal sanctuary's clinic and was given food and lots of kind attention.  As he became stronger, he thought a lot about the male at the house.  The Crane decided that human males who didn't grieve the loss of their mates like Cranes did, should be forced into whistling cars and taken away.




Author’s Note:  Whooping Cranes are an endangered species and are often tracked using radio-beacons attached to their legs.  If they are found in dangerous areas, they are transferred to safer, protected zones by wildlife care workers.