This Week's Update Includes:

• News: Migration Underway
• Slideshow: Survivor of Many Migrations
• Observe and Wonder: Ask the Expert Now Open!
• Maps: In Progress

Migration is in all stages: Some birds are still preparing on the wintering grounds, some are traveling, and some have already reached their nesting grounds.

Eastern Flock: At least 70 of this flock's 107 cranes are already back in Wisconsin. Thanks to southerly winds, March 11 was a big homecoming weekend at Necedah NWR. All individual crane bio pages have been updated, so check on your favorite crane. Click this map for more details, including the status of our darlings in the Class of 2011.

Western Flock: Radio signals from the flock's few banded birds and sightings of Whooping cranes from the flyway indicate that migration has begun! Some of the Whooping cranes that wintered in Texas (or Kansas or Nebraska this year) have begun their northern migration back to their nesting territories in Wood Buffalo National Park in the Northwest Territories of Canada. Some biologists believe that the recent unusually warm weather may have brought an earlier-than-usual northern migration.

We may never know if this flock reached the hoped-for total of 300 birds expected on the wintering grounds during 2011-2012 because weather foiled attempts to count the whoopers on Aransas National Wildlife Refuge. Also, some birds never reached Aransas NWR, stopping short in Kansas and Nebraska.

Migration is tied to species survival, yet migration is a risky journey. Whooping cranes can live a long time— 20 years or more in the wild. Think about how many challenges these long-lived birds have survived and conquered in all the spring and fall migrations of their long lives! This week's slideshow tells the story of a crane that may be migrating right now. He is a member of the Western Flock. We think that the Lobstick male is one of many extraordinary cranes who have completed many epic migrations!

• The Lobstick Male: Crane Extraordinaire