Just hatched!

In late April two staff from the Denver Zoo visited ICF to receive hands-on training in breeding techniques that we use with our cranes. The staff returned to Denver with new skills that they can hopefully use next season to produce fertile crane eggs (their birds are already responding well to the techniques learned here at ICF) AND with two fertile Hooded Crane eggs from ICF for their collection.

Since 1990, ICF has banded over 400 Sandhill Cranes in central Wisconsin, one of the densest nesting populations of cranes known anywhere in the world (we annually track around 60 breeding territories in our 6,400 ha study area). The small leg bands and radio transmitters, the latter placed on a select number of cranes, allow our staff to identify and track individual birds – once we can identify individuals, we can follow their movements, form hypotheses about their behaviors, and test these ideas in the field.

ICF’s captive Whooping Cranes are laying eggs and the number of wild Whooping Crane nests in Wisconsin is growing. Nesting season is here!

Access to the rare and endangered Whooping Crane chicks that are raised each year at the International Crane Foundation (ICF) in Baraboo, WI is granted only to trained ICF staff wearing crane costumes – until now. This chick season ICF is sharing this experience with the world through our live web cam!

I couldn’t believe what I was looking at. A painted bunting in Chicago? In January?! These birds belong in the humid swamps of the Gulf Coast, not the frigid streets of the Windy City. Yet there could be no doubt of what I was looking at, as this painted bunting was lying dead in a tray at the Field Museum among 140 other species of birds that have been collected as window kill below the skyscrapers and apartment buildings of Chicago.