Temporary leg band: white

Personality and Training: Crane chick #10-14 is the youngest in the Class of 2014 cohort. She is a full sister to chick #9-14.

At first, all the chicks got along well with each other except for 10-14. At the end of June, Geoff wrote: "She’s a bird who loves her space more than life itself, and any bird who’s in her three-foot bubble is in for a bad time. She’ll peck or chase them out of her comfort zone." Luckily, she's fine once the others get away from her. She has a lot to be sunny about, as her tough attitude has landed her the top spot in the pecking order. The chicks do their best to stay out of her way. It’s a challenge when another chick wants some food at a feeder, or wants to get near to "the costume," which #10 loves with all her heart!

In flight school in Wisconsin, chick #10 was shy of the gate and had to be coaxed out of the chicks' enclosure. After she's out onto the runway, she also has a bad habit of heading off into the field on her own. "Baaaaad girl! (and still not the most sociable)," said Heather at Operation Migration.

Migration departure is just over a month away, and the chicks are doing better each day. By August 18, #10 had gone from being the "problem child" to eagerly exiting the pen and flying well with the trike!

By the week of August 25, all the girls did great flying with the aircraft, logging over 15 minutes of air time despite the downtime due to recent poor weather.

Crane #10 likes to hold out on the runway after training and needs to be coerced into returning to the pen. The team is thankful that she has stopped her habit of dropping off into the marsh, earning her the nickname "Marsha."

October 10, 2014: Migration Day 1! The six girls took off for their first migration stop. Crane #10 flew the distance to Stopover #1: four miles.

October 11, 2014: Day 2 Cranes #2, 7, 9 and 10 took off but dismayed the team when they returned to their old White River Marsh training pensite instead of following the plane to Stopover #2. This has never happened in the team's past 13 seasons of leading cranes on migration! All were put in crates and driven to stop #2 in Marquette County, Wisconsin: 14 miles.

October 16, 2014: Day 7 After being grounded by wrong winds or rain for 5 days, the birds were eager to move on. All seven formed up as pilot Richard took off, but the air grew trashy as they rose upward. They must have said NO WAY and turned back to their pen to await a day with better flight conditions!

October 26, 2014: Day 17 Finally a fly day! Cranes #10, #3 and #8 were off to a good start, but #10 later dropped out. She was probably distracted by the other four cranes who had dropped out. Those five birds were crated and driven Stopover #3 in Columbia County, Wisconsin, while #3 and #8 flew the whole 28 miles.

November 3, 2014: Day 23 It was a great take-off for all seven birds, but it didn't last. They all dropped, out one by one.

November 7, 2014: Day 29 Today the team flew the birds in two separate shifts on a short 5-mile leg to an interim stop in Dane County, Wisconsin. Success! The photo shows cranes #4, 9 and 10, who were in the second group. All few the distance with Richard to join their flockmates in Dane County, WI.

November 25, 26, and 28, 2014: Days 47, 48 & 50 Cranes #10 and #4 were held back on these three flights, slipped into their crates before the aircraft arrived to take off with the others. They were driven while the others flew. Without #4 and #10 to lead them in dropping out, the other five flew with no problems at all. All seven birds were reunited again at the new stopovers.

Cranes 10 and 4 were held back because they've dropped out of the flights leading the other birds with them. It's not their fault: Crane 10 learned the wrong lesson after weeks of not flying due to all the bad-weather days in the north. She traveled much of this migration in a cardboard box (see right), covering the miles aboard a van.

The team still hopes to include these two birds, one at a time, in hopes it learns by example and falls into line with the others. They also hope that the five good followers have regained their lost loyalty to the plane and will be less inclined to follow one dropout bird if the lesson doesn’t take on the first try.

December 23, 2014: Freedom! The cranes were released to freedom on the morning of Dec. 23. This is the first year they won't have a final health check.

January 5, 2015: Each bird was quickly caught one more time to get permanent legbands and tracking transmitters.

March, 2015: Brooke reports that the Class of 2014 appear to be getting a bit antsy; they’ve been dancing more frequently. He also said that warming temperatures are bringing all kinds of tasty critters to the surface so the chicks are having fun probing in the mud. When will they begin their first journey north?

On May 2, Brooke and Colleen captured 8, 9 and 10 (the other two got separated from them in stormy weather and weren't immediately accessible). The three birds were crated, driven during the night, and released on White River Marsh on May 4, 2015. HOME! Their "summer pals" group consisted of three males:#4-12, 5-12 and 4-14 (Peanut) and three females: 3-14, 9-14 and 10-14. They often visited the White River Marsh training site where the Class of 2015 was training for their fall migration with the ultralight aircraft.

On Nov. 6, sub-adult female #3-14’s satellite transmitter showed that she was on the move. On Nov. 12 her transmitter placed her in Christian County, Kentucky. By late November, she and female #10-14 were in Jenkins County, Georgia. Late on Dec. 8, cranes #3-14 and #10-14 (still with males #4-12 and #4-14, or "Peanut") arrived at St. Marks NWR in Florida! These four late arrivals had been blown east into east-central Georgia in mid-November and made one foray to McIntosh County, GA on the Atlantic coast. Very soon after that, they returned north to Jenkins County. On Dec. 8, a hit came in for #3-14, placing her near Live Oak, FL, about 80 miles east of St. Marks. Hooray! Every crane in the Class of 2014 has now made it to their Florida winter home!

January 1, 2016: Sad news indeed. The remains of #10-14 were discovered near the winter pen (still awaiting arrival of the Class of 2015) on the first day of the new year. Just as in her days of training with her ultralight-led cohort, she continued to occasionally wander away from the group of cranes she had been associating with. That means fewer eyes watching for predators, which exist everywhere. Her remains will be sent to the National Wildlife Health Lab in Madison, WI for necropsy but bobcat predation is suspected.