Whooping Crane
 

Headwinds Ground Them Again (+ 0 Miles )
 December 3, 2008: Migration Day 48

Every three days the crane-kids get to exercise if they are not migrating.
Photo Marie Brady

With 40-mph SSW winds aloft, this is the fourth day stuck at the last stop in Kentucky. By tomorrow morning, the winds will have swung around to come out of the NNW — but will their velocity be too much of a good thing? We will see, and today's Journal Questions give you something else to ponder.

Meanwhile, where are the the wild and free whoopers of the new Eastern flock? The four 2008 DAR (Direct Autumn Release) cranes remain with older Whooping crane #216 in northern Illinois. The fifth 2008 DAR crane and #10-08 (the crane removed from the ultralight cohort) are with six adult whooping cranes, now in S. Indiana. Thirteen older cranes are at Tennessee's Hiwassee Wildlife Refuge. Two cranes are on their wintering territory in South Carolina. Three are in Alabama, and three have been confirmed in Florida through satellite data. Only one Whooping crane has not yet begun migration: DAR #40-07 remains in her Michigan summer home. The rest of the flock's 74 wild and free Whooping cranes are located along the migration route in Illinois and Indiana.

The public can view the cranes and planes upon departing Marshall County, KY for Carroll County, TN by meeting in front of the Lighthouse Missionary Baptist Church on CR1264 (also known as Flat Road), which is off Hwy 402. Flat Road, or CR1264. is between Jackson School Road and Wilkins Road. MapQuest or GoogleMaps will help you to come up with driving directions from your home location. Remember: the weather is in charge.

In the Classroom

  • Today's Journal Questions:
    (a) The halfway point is the Hardin County, TN stop, two stops away from their current location. If the estimated trip is 1285 miles total, how many miles are they from their halfway point?
  • (b-for-bonus) Something significant happened on this date for the Class of 2001 migration, which was the first-ever human-assisted migration of an endangered species. What happened on Dec. 3, 2001? With what you know about the progress for the Class of 2008, what's your prediction for their arrival? (The second half of the migration always goes faster than the first half.)

Journey North is pleased to feature this educational adventure presented in cooperation with the Whooping Crane Eastern Partnership (WCEP).

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