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November
25, 2003
Day 41
A Mountainous Challenge
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OM's
Charlie Schaffer and ICF's
Sara Zimorski begin the long walk to the crane enclosure beyond
the edge of the grass field. |
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Twelve
cranes peel away with the eastern portion of Walden Ridge looming
beyond. Today they were up and over! Photos OM |
Today's good news is that they're off the Cumberland plateau! The migration
advanced to Hamilton County, TN and and Hiwassee Wildlife Refuge—but
not without a struggle. The planes and cranes (some of them, anyway) lifted
off from their Cumberland County site at 7:23 AM and flew for two hours
and 52 minutes. They added 33.1 miles, for an accumulated distance of
685.8 miles (Statute).
As expected, it was an interesting flight. No, make that an unbelievable
flight! Eight tired birds and their equally exhausted ultralight pilots
made it to the Refuge by air. Four birds turned back, returning to the
pen from whence they left this morning. Those four are being trucked to
the Hiwassee Refuge. Four others took more scenic routes and ended up
being trucked to the stopover site. That's the story in a nutshell, but
click here to read all the
fascinating details (including an encounter with F16 fighter planes!)
in Heather's words!
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| This Date Last Fall |
This Fall |
| Map
the Migration |
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In what state was the migration on this date last year? What do your records show about the duration of the cranes' longest daily flight so far?
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BONUS! Here's a task for the brave: After reading the full account of today's journey, think of another way to organize the information. You may choose a graphic organizer, an outline, or a narrative with clear topic sentences for each paragraph. Then send it to Journey North and we'll put it on the Web with a link from today's report.
Journey
North is pleased to feature this educational adventure made possible by
the
Whooping Crane Eastern Partnership (WCEP).
Copyright
2003-2004 Journey North. All Rights Reserved.
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