A Scottsburg couple is responsible for reuniting #733 with the rest of the flock three days after he was reported missing.

Whas eleven's Andy treinen talked to that couple today.

"Oh, he was probably three and a half foot maybe at least three foot, but from a distance it was hard to gauge."

Birds make themselves at home on Arthur Mayer's property, but this one stood out like well, a whooping crane, one of only 500 alive, and made famous here lately by their migration south behind and ultra lite aircraft.

Arthur Mayer's wife had been watching our coverage of the whooping cranes for a couple of days when he noticed a huge bird back there on the other side of the pond.  She was in the shower and he mentioned it to her and she said, “You know what Arthur? I bet it's that missing whooping crane"

"Our grandkids will say one day that bird landed on our farm."

Arthur Meyer

Whoop, there he is: Whooping crane #733 has been spotted in Indiana

And Arthur has a picture to prove it. Apparently he doesn't watch our news as faithfully as Donna does.

"I didn't know they was looking for one, no, and I said ‘What are you talking about?” and she said, ‘Well, I saw on the news they were looking for a whooping crane.’"

Arthur then noticed the tracking device on the crane's leg. After three phone calls, he got hold of a conservation official who, after some convincing, believed his story. Both he and Donna continued to watch from inside.

"I got over next to the window and held ‘em real still and I could see it, too,” Donna says. “It was the green tracking device."

"I didn't want to frighten him off because I thought if they're coming over they need to see him, but he decided to leave before they got here," Arthur says.

But Operation Migration trackers was onto its trail, they followed the bird fifty miles to a cow pasture in Big Spring, Kentucky, and they coaxed him into a crate.

And now the Mayer's have a tall tale to tell friends, and a picture of a whooping crane to prove it.

That whooping crane is one of 17 being taught a migratory route from Wisconsin to Florida. Because they were hatched in captivity, they have no parents to teach them the way, so that ultralight aircraft is the guide.

Web story produced by Jay Ditzer.