Every year about this time, Operation Migration gathers the young whooping cranes it has raised and departs on an epic journey: a 1,200-mile trip from central Wisconsin to the west coast of Florida.
The young cranes have never made the trip, so they must be shown the way. To this end, they have been trained to follow an ultralight aircraft as if it were their parent. The goal of the yearly flights is to establish a viable population of whooping cranes that use this eastern migration route. All other whooping cranes migrate between Aransas National Wildlife Refuge, TX and Canada's Wood Buffalo National Park.
Whooping cranes were in danger of extinction in the 1940's, when there were just 15 of them left. By 1999, it was estimated that there were over 180. Operation Migration was founded because it was imperative to establish a separate crane population in case disease or weather threatened the western one. By 2006, there were 60 whooping cranes in the eastern group. The cranes return to Wisconsin on their own the following spring.
Operation Migration maintains a daily field journal during the migration so you can see their progress. Check out their website, www.operationmigration.org, and their photo stream on Flickr for more on this grand experiment.
Via Flickr:
Brooke Pennypacker leading 9 of the 11 juvenile Whooping Cranes in the Class of 2010 from LaSalle to Livingston County, IL
Credit: Veronica Anderton
Tuesday, October 18, 2011
Thursday, October 13, 2011
Why Did The Woolly Bear Cross the Road?
Woolly bears are probably our most recognized caterpillar. They're an inch and a half long and covered with quarter-inch bristles. They're black on each end and reddish-brown in the middle. This time of year, you often see them racing across roads, sometimes in such numbers that it seems they're on suicide missions. What are they doing?
Woolly bears are the larvae of the Isabella tiger moth, a nondescript small brown moth. They can eat pretty much anything, including dandelions and grass. So they're not looking for food. They're searching for a good place to spend the winter. Insects can survive the winter in many different forms. In paper wasps, for example, only the queen of each colony and the eggs she carries live through the winter. All of the other paper wasps die. Many moths spend the winter in cocoons.
Woolly bears hibernate as caterpillars, curled under leaf litter or in any other protected spot they can find, such as your garage. In spring, they'll wake up and start eating again for a little while before forming a cocoon and turning into a moth. Now is a great time to pick them up and take a closer look. They won't hurt you; they'll just curl up in your hand. While you're at it, maybe you can help them across.
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