Operation Migration - Whooping Crane Flyover

Operation migration (http://www.operationmigration.org/) brought 7 young Whooping Cranes to the St. Marks Wildlife Refuge today. The hope is to establish migration and winter residency patterns for the amazing birds. We drove down to St. Marks from Tallahassee before the sun rose to get a good vantage spot. Coldest temperatures of the year (low 20s) so until the sun came up, we shivered. Lots of folks turned out (several thousand) to see the 3 ultralights lead this formation of birds to the winter hangout. Quite a remarkable sight, to see humans and animals working so closely together. Please visit their site (above) and help offset the non-trivial costs of this operation. We tried to take a few photos and a little video. Everything happened so fast, and we were shooting into dazzling sunlight, but hopefully you can get a sense of this.

Pictures:

Whooping Crane Flyover

Video: