Migration continued in full force on Thanksgiving Day, November 26 with 13 more cranes departing from Necedah National Wildlife Refuge, including the first 2009 DAR chick to leave, #38-09.  That morning dawned gray and cloudy, but with strong winds from the northwest.  I headed down south of the refuge to check on pair #5-01/1-05.  As I headed back towards the refuge, I heard signals from various other cranes coming from south of the refuge.  I got to Necedah as fast as I could so I could tell what was happening better, being closer to the signals. 

I found nine whooping cranes in a corn stubble field south of Necedah with a large group (100+) of Sandhill Cranes and heard two others nearby but to the south.  As I sat and watched, the two from the south flew back north and landed in the field.  All eleven cranes seemed jumpy and continued to do short little hops across the field.  Finally, all the Whooping Cranes and a majority of the Sandhills took off and began to fly in low circles over the field.  The Sandhills all returned to forage in the corn stubble, but the Whooping Cranes had other ideas, and they all headed over the tree line to the south.  Two broke off and returned to the field, but the others continued flying.  The group included pairs 16-02/16-07, 11-03/12-03, 11-02/17-02, 12-05/22-07 and DAR chick 38-09.  Pairs 5-01/1-05 and 10-03/W1-06 also began migration on Thanksgiving. 

The signals for the group of nine (including #38-09) were eventually lost, so their roost location was not determined for Thursday night, but I was able to get up in a plane generously donated by Windway Aviation Corp. with pilot Jesse Jacobson the next day to try to locate these birds.  Since #38-09 does not have a satellite transmitter, we want to have a tracker following him from the ground so that we can get good information on his migration stopovers and know if he remains with adults.  My task was to locate him and whoever he may still be with.  With some help from Don, the top cover pilot for Operation Migration (OM), I got a good general area of where to start looking.  Don had heard three signals from the adults that #38-09 was with as he and OM continued their migration south (OM and the 20 ultralight-led cranes are currently in Cumberland County, Illinois). 

Jesse and I headed towards Pontiac, Illinois, where Don had heard the signals, and we eventually picked up very faint signals for #'s 16-02/16-07, 12-05/22-07 and 38-09.  As we continued south, the signals got stronger until finally (after much circling and frustration) Jesse spotted the birds in flight over the tree tops.  We circled over them for a while before we headed to the nearest airport to refuel.  Once back in the air, we were able to get a visual on the birds quite quickly and followed them until they landed in a marsh in Lawrence County, Illinois.  With our tracking intern Jess Thompson headed down to the birds location, Jesse and I headed back north in the plane, checking locations where birds have been in past years with hopes of finding some more.

Update by Eva Szyszkoski, ICF Tracking Field Manager.