Tom Stehn, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Whooping Crane Coordinator, expects the next influx of migrants to arrive with a cold front that is expected today.
Whooping cranes do not migrate in large flocks of family groups as do sandhill cranes, but rather, they travel in single family units, as solitary individuals or in small bachelor groups.
Subadults that have been driven away by their parents to make room for the next generation of offspring join up in small groups of males and females called bachelor groups. Whooping cranes require 4-5 years to reach breeding maturity. These subadult groupings provide companionship, potential mates and more safety as the young cranes gain survival experience.Click these links for more about whooping cranes, the whooping crane family, whooping crane chick video and whooping crane ultralight migration.
Beautiful pictures! Thanks for sharing images of such a great bird.
ReplyDeleteYou have wonderful bird photography and a very thought provoking blog.
ReplyDeleteIt seems odd that we, each of us, can change the world by simply taking one step along th path of thought. By altering our own thinking into a more positive direction we generate an avalanche
of change as that thought changes us and all who come in contact with us. Thus creating a pyramid flow on effect by those who have been affected then radiating uotwart to yet others who may be toutched by a passing smile and be the better for it etc. We have no right even to wish to change another yet carry the responsibility to change ourselves for the greatest good of all concerned.
You can always delete this if it is too cumbersome.
Hi Sparverius. Thank you for visiting and for your comment. The whooping crane is a magestic and beautiful bird.
ReplyDeleteArija, thank you and I appreciate your comment. Every positive effort makes a difference and, yes, with each act of kindness, we influence not only ourselves, but the lives we touch, and the lives they touch, and it continues.
Hi Vickie!
ReplyDeleteI am happy to hear that this bachelor groups safely arrived at it destination.
Let hope that those wind turbines will not be build along this endangered birds flight path, or all this effort of Operation Migration will be wasted.
Have a great weekend!
Hi Vickie: Thank you for your comment on my blog. I shall try my best english to tell you, that I am amaised to see tham there are people, who also feel the migration of the birds as somethink special and sacred. Please, keep making and sending this fantastic pictures! Regards from Malaga, Andalucia.
ReplyDeletewww.surfbirds.com/blog/andalucianature
Regards, Theo Todorov
Thank you Tabib. I am happy that we now have two wild migrating populations of whooping cranes, one the original, gradually increasing, wild population migrating from Wood Buffalo, in Canada, to the Gulf coast of Texas, USA; the second, our re-introduced whooping cranes in the east, taught the migration route with ultralights, migrating from Wisconsin to the Florida coast.
ReplyDeleteThis year's ultralight migration class is on day #6 of migration, now in WI waiting out rainy weather. But they are on their way.
Welcome Theo and thank you. I greatly enjoyed my visit and your beautiful photography. I must learn Spanish! Regards from Tennesee, USA.
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing this good news, Vickie. Your photographs of them are so beautiful. What a bird!
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