Each of our 2025 travel stories will focus on a Texas festival. To kick off the series, we headed to Port Aransas for the town's annual Whooping Crane Festival.

It's just past 7 in the morning, and the sun is rising over the water of Aransas Bay. The February weather is mild, and the air smells fresh and salty. I'm standing on the top deck of a boat, sheltered from the wind by the boat's cabin, listening to the chatter of passengers and the calls of waterbirds that dip and soar around us.

Nearby, a small group of people is gathered around a spotting scope, taking turns looking through the eyepiece toward the place where seawater meshes with marshland. Out among the reeds I see some white blobs.

“Do you want to see the cranes or the shorebirds?” says Tom Langschied, an avid birder and guide who has been talking the group through everything they're seeing. “Let's start with the cranes. They're the stars of the show.”

This boat tour is my first time glimpsing a whooping crane — a rare, gigantic bird that spends part of its life here in Port Aransas. Through Langschied's scope, I see two of the elegant white cranes, and between them a smaller, brownish bird that I learn is a juvenile. It is a beautiful and uncommon sight.

Each year, a group of whooping cranes flies from Wood Buffalo National Park in Canada all the way to the Texas coast. Their population numbers in the 500s — back from a historic low of 15 birds in 1941. Extensive conservation efforts have made this bird's story a cautious success, and a point of great pride for Texans and Canadians alike.

Whooping cranes are beloved by many people, from their northern caretakers to people whose fields they stop in along their journey. And, of course, the people of Port Aransas. The cranes also draw bird-watchers from all over the state and beyond. Each year in February, the city hosts the Whooping Crane Festival, an entire weekend of boat tours, talks, guided hikes and other crane-related activities.

A Winter Texan Reunion

The Festival kicks off on a Thursday, and that evening the Port Aransas Arts Center is bursting with bird enthusiasts here for the welcome reception. A giant painting of a roseate spoonbill greets us with a splash of pink as we walk through the door. Wine is flowing, someone is playing guitar, and people are chatting, eating cheese and crackers and buying art pieces featuring coastal creatures and vistas. The atmosphere is filled with anticipation of the weekend to come.

It's here I meet Bill and Esther Scanlan. The couple lives in New Braunfels, and they come down nearly every year for the festival. The first time they attended, “It was an accident,” says Bill. “We were full-time RV-ers, and we found our way down to Port Aransas. We were wintering for a few months, just like the birds.”

The festival seemed like a fun way to spend a weekend — and when they got there, they were hooked. “It was fascinating,” Bill says. “Ever since, we've tried to make it every year.”

Bill remembers the first time he saw a whooping crane. “It was somewhat emotional, because it's so rare,” he says. “I hope they stick around and find a way [to live] so they don't just disappear.”

Can a get a “Whoop-Whoop”?

The Festival is broken up into separate events, so instead of paying a flat rate, attendees can pick and choose what interests them. On Friday, the first full day, I decide on a crash course in crane biology, attending lectures by George Archibald, the president of the International Crane Foundation, and Elizabeth Smith, a senior researcher at the International Crane Foundation.

“Welcome to the Whooping Crane Festival — can I get a ‘Whoop-whoop’?” says Kate Fitzwilliams, senior development officer of the ICF, as she introduces the first speaker.

I learn that the whooping crane is the tallest flying bird in North America, standing 5 feet tall with a 7.5-foot wingspan. Whooping cranes are named for their resonant call. Their loud, gargling sound comes from an extra-long trachea that coils around the bird's breastbone twice, almost like a French horn.

There are only two types of crane that live in North America (the other is the sandhill crane). The 13 other species of crane are spread across five of the seven continents, the exceptions being Antarctica and South America.

Cruising the Bay

Saturday arrives - the day of the whooping crane boat tour. I'm dressed before dawn and ready to see my first whooping crane. At the dock, we immediately recognize our group because of all the cameras and zoom lenses. We file onto the boat, which has an indoor cabin with a coffee and snack bar, as well as several comfortable booths.

The real excitement is upstairs, though. On the top deck, birders are setting up their spotting scopes, staking out a good seat on the boat's long benches and peering through binoculars at the cormorants, pelicans and gulls to either side of us. As we cruise through the bay, the captain pulls over several times to allow the birders to investigate the creatures pacing the marshes. By the time we finally turn around, nearly two hours in, everyone aboard has had multiple opportunities to catch a glimpse of a crane.

Back onshore, we recoup for our evening activity: a painting class. We each receive a canvas and proceed to follow step-by-step instructions to create our own artwork of two whooping cranes foraging in a marsh. At the end, the compliments flow freely on the character of various painters' trees, cranes and clouds in the blue strip of sky.

A Parting Shot

the next day I wake up early for my last official stop of my whooping crane weekend: a guided birding tour of the Leonabelle Turnbull Birding Center. It's walking distance from my hotel, and I head over as the morning light is just hitting the beach houses and hotels, painting them golden.

I arrive at the birding center and join the tour group, who are mostly dressed in the browns and khakis of serious birders, and we head out into the marsh, where a boardwalk allows visitors to walk right out over the water and reeds. The air is thick with the cries of thousands of waterbirds, and a giant alligator lies basking below the bridge.

I'm a novice birder, so I appreciate our guide pointing out blue- and green-winged teals floating peacefully, a common gallinule sticking out like a sore thumb, black-necked stilts with their cartoonish pink legs and a rambunctious cluster of American white pelicans.

Off in the distance, a couple of whooping cranes forage for marsh invertebrates. They're far away for a reason; despite their intimidating size, the birds are skittish and easily disturbed by human activities. (Port Aransas officials caution that bird-watchers must maintain a 1,000-foot distance from the cranes.)

Before leaving town, we decide to make a final stop at a whooping crane hotspot — a field the birds seemingly chose at random as a place to forage. We drive past Goose Island State Park, and then on to a road that follows the contours of the shoreline. I immediately spot several cranes picking their way slowly through the field, which is saturated with standing water and surely hosts some tasty invertebrates.

In the distance, cattle graze, unbothered by their avian visitors. Out here I'm able to hear more clearly the crane's calls reverberating through the air, and I am acutely aware of how lucky I am to experience these rare birds, tenuously back from the brink of extinction.

I also think of what an iconically Texas experience I am having in this moment. I mean — standing alongside an idyllic pasture, within view of the Gulf, where longhorn cattle rub shoulders with the tallest birds in North America? Does it get more Texas than that? I don't think so.

Attend This Year's Festival

February 20-23, 2025

portaransas.org/whooping-crane-festival

Experience Port Aransas

Go to the beach

Head to Port Aransas Beach, the town's public stretch of sand, or drive out to Mustang Island State Park.

Enjoy fresh seafood

Take advantage of the coastal locale to eat fresh seafood. Check out Trout Street Bar & Grill, Tortuga's Saltwater Grill or Grumbles.

Experience the arts

Catch a play at the Port Aransas Community Theater, soak in the local talent at the Port Aransas Arts Center, or visit local galleries such as J. Morris 683 Photography.

Stay a while

Port A offers a wide variety of accommodations — cozy beach cottages, conventional motels, luxury condominiums and private beach houses. Camping's available, too, or check out the historic Tarpon Inn built in 1886.

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