What the editors of Birder's World (and a few of the editors' good friends) find in their field of view when they work on the magazine, look through their binoculars, and consider the world of birds and birdwatching. Subscribe to our feed using Live Bookmarks, Bloglines, My Yahoo, or Google.
Wisconsin Whooping Cranes hatch chick |
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A pair of Whooping Cranes in Wood County, Wisconsin, are parents after the egg in their nest hatched yesterday. The birds, known as 12-02 and 19-04, had nested north of Necedah National Wildlife Refuge in late April but later abandoned the nest. Their two eggs were found to be infertile. The pair renested May 21 in the same place and again laid two eggs. Officials with the Whooping Crane Eastern Partnership decided that if the eggs was infertile, they would be replaced with a fertile egg from the captive flock. On Thursday, June 11, Sara Zimorski and Eva Szyszkoski of the International Crane Foundation found that the eggs weren't fertile and placed an egg produced at ICF in the nest. The chick hatched yesterday -- only the third chick to be hatched in the wild during the reintroduction project. "The pair is extremely attentive to their new chick and appear to be naturals at parenting," according to an update on the ICF website. Two chicks hatched in June 2006; one died a few months later and is suspected to have been killed by a raccoon. The other, a female known as W1-06, learned the migration route to Florida from its parents and today is paired with a male on the refuge.
The parents of the 2006 chicks are currently one of two pairs incubating eggs on the refuge. If their eggs are fertile, they could hatch in the next 2-9 days. --M.M. Read our story about the Whooping Crane recovery project from our April 2007 issue.
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