The bird in this learn node is Crane #722 who is now participating in her first Journey South. She hatched on May 21, 2007 and is a member of 2007 Autumn Release Group III of captive-born whopping cranes who this fall are on their 1st migration, led by ultralight planes . She is part of the Journey North Whooping Crane adventures in which new online participants (you) are invited to take part. The wonder of the many Journey North global studies of wildlife migration and seasonal change in which many thousands of students and nature enthusiasts have participated for more than a decade is that their subjects are real. You can, for example, visit the Journey North monarch butterfly migration map to see where the great winged beauties have been sighted this fall as they are moving toward Mexico to winter there.
Crane #722 is playing a role in efforts to reestablish whooping cranes, who had almost become extinct in the 20th century. We are learning from her more general lessons about migration of birds. For more on that, there is a student project on The Mystery of Bird Migration in these MIT engineering class materials and even more in this lecture on migration and navigation.
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