Whooping Crane Migration - Day 13

Today the cranes and the migration crew put 46 miles behind them, for a total of 95 miles. I just had to steal some of the gorgeous pictures posted at Operation Migration as the cranes flew over Green County. I think they are stunning.

In this picture the cranes are gliding on the wind coming over the wings of the planes. They are not only beautiful birds, they are SMART.



This picture just blew me away.



Be sure to visit Operation Migration "In the Field" for daily journals from the pilots and crew.

Technorati tags: Whooping Crane
International Crane Foundation
Operation Migration
Whooping Crane Eastern Partnership
Journey South

Whooping Cranes on their way - Day 12

After six days of downtime because of the weather here in Wisconsin the flock was able to move on to site three (Sauk County) on their journey south. Better news is, it also looks good for tomorrow. So, after this mornings 26 miles, we have a total of 49 miles in 12 days. The ultralight planes simply cannot travel with wind and the low fog we sometimes have here is also a factor.



Here they are taking off - note the beautiful fall color.



And, all 14 are on their way to Sauk County, Wi.

The crew was kept busy the past six days amusing the cranes who were kept in their travel pens. Just like a bunch of children, they can get themselves in trouble when they are bored. Apparently they love pumpkins and can entertain themselves by playing with pumpkin pieces.


Here's Number 829, playing with his piece of the pumpkin.


And here's the gang in the travel enclosure. The handlers/crew wear the white "uniforms" at all times when around the cranes.

All pictures are from the Operation Migration website. Please visit there to see many more wonderful pictures. Please also visit the In the Field pages for the interesting journal entries the crew post each day.

Technorati tags: Whooping Crane
International Crane Foundation
Operation Migration
Whooping Crane Eastern Partnership
Journey South

Whooping Crane Pictures from Operation Migration

Today is another down day and it looks like we will have several, but I wanted to post a couple of pictures the pilot took yesterday. These are from Operation Migration. Please go to their website and read the field notes and see more pictures. I love how they are keeping up updated with the progress.





We camped near this lake when we went to the Whooping Crane Festival last month. The fall color is very pretty.

Technorati tags: Whooping Crane
International Crane Foundation
Operation Migration
Whooping Crane Eastern Partnership
Journey South

Technorati Profile

Whooping Cranes Airborne this Morning

A Picture from my last visit to the ICF, Baraboo

Woo Hoo. The weather cooperated today and the second leg of the journey was made this morning - another 19 miles added to the 4 from the first leg and we are up to 23 miles. The mileage per day will get longer after this. All the birds seemed ready and willing to fly today. From the Operation Migration journal -

The planes are safely on the ground and the Class of 2008 are all tucked in the travel pen at Stopover #2 in Juneau County, WI. This leg is the second shortest of all, just 19 miles (by air) from pensite to pensite.

It was our first morning with a temperature below freezing - 19F at 6:15AM - and everyone reached for their long underwear and grabbed sets of hot packs for inside their gloves and mitts. Winds were out of the WNW at 4mph, and while there was shallow fog, it was clear above ground level. The promising conditions sent everyone scurrying out of camp.

On his signal, (7:43am) the ground crew released the birds, and today's lead pilot, Chris, swooped in. With the exception of 830, who had to be chased out of the pen, all the birds took to the air and the crane rodeo began. After several circuits, 10 birds had found Brooke's wing and he turned to head south. The other pilots were left to round up the other four.

Although we're still in Juneau County, albeit South Juneau, we've finally made it to migration Stopover #2. In fact, despite leaving on migration 4 days later this year, we've reached stop #2 two days ahead of when we did in 2007. Admittedly, not much to brag about given the slowness of last year's journey, but I'm going to take the optimistic view that we're setting a trend.

We try to get the EarlyBird e-bulletin sent and this Field Journal posted as quickly as possible every morning. It can be challenging, and it has been more than challenging the last couple of days. Our contract gives us a specific limit of bandwidth and - oops, we'd exceeded our allotment. This means we're taken down to a pace that would make a snail a contender at a Nascar race. All this is to say that we do know you're anxiously waiting for news and thank you for bearing with us.

Technorati tags: Whooping Crane
International Crane Foundation
Operation Migration
Whooping Crane Eastern Partnership
Journey South

Migration Update - Day 4

The weather has continued to hamper the progress of the migration. After a whopping 5 miles in the first day, the crew has been unable to move past the first stopover. Hopefully things will clear up soon so they can be on their way.

I was reading a little this morning, Liz Condie, who is a member of the crew posted on the field notes at Operation Migration about the genealogy of the 14 chicks in the three coherts.

The Eastern Migratory Whooping Crane Population

#824 is one of the chicks born to captive parents at Patuxent WRC . In fact, her parents #1127 & 1154 have had chicks in each ultralight migration since 2001. #823 is her sister, but is not listed as being with the ultralight group.

#805, 806, 810 and 811 were rescued from abandoned nests at Necedah Wildlife Refuge. All 11 of the nests were abandoned by their parents this year. The rescued eggs were transported to Patuxent to be hatched. #810, as mentioned in previous blogs was an agressive bird and would not socialize at all. In fact, he killed one other young crane and wounded #811, taking her out of the program. She will be OK, but will be at a Zoo. #810 was given a chance to learn and eventually was also taken out of the program as he was not trustworthy. Because of #810, including him, a total of 4 birds were subtracted from the original 18. It will be interesting to see how he ends up.

Another interesting chart I found was a Whooping Crane Population Chart. Shows all the birds in the wild, as well as captivity.

Hoping for better weather tomorrow.

Technorati tags: Whooping Crane
International Crane Foundation
Operation Migration
Whooping Crane Eastern Partnership
Journey South

Whooping Crane Migration - 2008

And we're off!!

The 14 young Whooping cranes in Class of 2008 took to
the air this morning shortly before 8AM. Five followed one trike and three another, flying over the heads of the crowd of Craniacs gathered on the Necedah refuge to witness the departure.

Only 11 of the 14 actually ended up flying to the first stop. Three of the older cranes decided to stick to the runway and their pens and eventually, because of weather issues, were crated and taken via land vehicles to the first stop. One messed around in the marsh for awhile and eventually was found by a pilot searching for him and got with the program.

I was interested in how big an operation this was and found a mention this morning that along with the 14 cranes, there are 12 personnel, 4 ultralight aircraft and five RV's making this trek to Florida.

Here is a pic of the training pen used to contain the cranes one the stopovers.





As stated at Operation Migration:

Seven states, ~1285 miles, and an unknown number of migration days lie between the 2008 Whooping crane chicks’ fledging ground at Necedah National Wildlife Refuge in Wisconsin, and their wintering grounds in Florida.

Five miles down.....1280 to go!!!!

Technorati tags:
Whooping Crane
International Crane Foundation
Operation Migration
Whooping Crane Eastern Partnership
Journey South