Journey North invites us to come online and Meet the 2008 Whooping Crane Chicks. For this post I have selected Crane #804, born May 9, 2008, shown in the two pictures with this post. Like all 2008 chicks, #804 was born in captivity because none of last year’s nests produced live young. The egg care givers report in their notes that:
This chick has huge personality. He already had a lot to say while still in the egg! Barb said, “When it was in the hatcher, we would check on the egg by making crane vocalizations to assess its strength and progress. Each time I did this, #4 just peeped and peeped and peeped. It was like a little girl who had her phone privileges taken away for a month and finally was able to talk on the phone again to her girlfriends. Chick #4 did this before hatching and also after being old enough to go to a pen.”
Read more about this chatty crane on #804’s personal page. It includes the explanation for the second picture above: “Bees were a problem at the refuge and 804 was stung. The bee sting made his beak get out of line, but it was soon back to normal.”
Chick #804’s page is part of Operation Migration, a remarkable project to reintroduce Whooping Cranes to their natural migration. The cranes, including #804, are now almost finished with their October 2008-January 2009 migration.
The virtual birth, life, and migration of Chick #804 is gold for learning within the internet swamp. A printed textbook and/or the most creative and exciting classroom work cannot provide the learning experience that a student gets by following Chick #804. This is not a substitute for education as we have known it. It is a marvelous phoenix of learning hatching in the swamp.