A large crowd gathered at the Dunnellon Airport Tuesday morning to see one of the newest flocks of whooping cranes on their first migration to Florida. As Vic Micolucci reports, the latest trip is being considered a success by the team of experts working as part of Operation Migration.
very cool. but it bet that ultralight has an “obama/biden” sticker on it.
Just prayin’ the pain is not in vain.
It won't be long till they show up. I'll get pics.
I saw a movie a couple of years ago about a girl who did the same thing with geese. It was soo cool I had a tear in my eye. The geese flying in formation and honking behind the ultra light. Great Flick!
THey made a movie about this, “Fly Away Home”.
This fall a flock of cranes flew over Springfield MO. Gracefully they broke out of formation, gathering to loop and dive in extreme slow motion. Their wings glittered in the sun. One of the most amazing sights I ever witnessed.
We’re pretty close to their flight path.
When I was growing up we had a landing strip on the top of our hill so my Dad could take off and land his plane. All it was was a flat stretch of cropland on top of the hill. When we hayed, the landing strip was the first place we picked the bales up from... (Hay bales are hard to see from a bird’s eye view, yet they are remarkably solid and running into one while landing a plane should be avoided at all costs.)
It still shows up as a landing strip on topographic maps, even though sometimes it’s now covered in corn and even Capt. Sully would be well advised to not attempt a landing there...
A few years back the Operation Migration ground support stopped by to ask permission to overnight on our land, if they needed, depending on variables such as weather and how far they could get each day. Turned out they didn’t need to, but it was still pretty neat...
The plane-trained cranes fly mainly over the Paynes Prairie Preserve.
("By George, I think she's GOT it!")
Cheers!
Thanks for the post. Their daily adventures are posted here: http://www.operationmigration.org/Field_Journal.html
One of their stops on their new route is about 10 miles from here (Champaign Illinois area). Went to see them off last year (2008), but they were too high to get a good picture. Missed them this year. Its a long haul following the ultralights. Took them from the middle of Oct. to the middle of Jan. The older ones flying on their own could do it in a few days.