During Friday morning's flight, ultra-light pilot, Brooke Pennypacker, led 13 cranes over the Twin Groves wind farm at approximately 2000 ft. altitude with no problems. Pilot Richard van Heuvelen, on the other hand, had one lone bird; number 827, who tends to prefer having an aircraft all to himself. Richard was flying at approximately 2500 ft. and as soon as this crane saw the turbines below, he did a 180 degree turn and wanted nothing to do with them. Richard turned to collect him and tried again to no avail. He ended up having to divert west, toward Bloomington, IL and away from the wind farm so that he could get the bird back on course to our Piatt County location.

36-days on their migration flight to Florida...and the 14-young whooping cranes, who left the Necedah National Wildlife Refuge on October 17th...have flown 298-miles of their 1250-mile migration and are in Piatt County, Illinois. According to the Operation Migration website...the Class of 2008 whooping cranes traveled 114-miles Friday...and with a favorable wind leave Piatt County for Cumberland County Saturday, November 22nd.

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