No guitar practice last Sunday morning

Hydroman52
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Joined: Sat Apr 11, 2009 7:52 am
Status: Offline

Wed Sep 12, 2012 11:37 am

Usually, I get an hour or two of guitar practice in the morning before things start going crazy, but this last Sunday was a different story. I had the opportunity to be in the observation blind to watch the flight training of the “Class of 2012” Whooping Cranes for the Operation Migration project. Here is a link to their WEB site:

Operation Migration

You can watch the live Crane-Cam right now at this link:

Ultra cool Whooping Crane Cam

However, the best time to watch is between 7:00am – 8:30am Central Time (8:00am – 9:30am Eastern Time) when the ultra-light is taking them through their flight training exercises. The rest of the day, they are basically puddling around in their pen. Sometimes, conditions are not favorable (too windy, rain, etc.). This morning was a little windy and was a no-fly morning, but the volunteers (men in the white suits) were in the bird pen around 8:30am to feed and tend the birds.

Here are some photos that I took while I was out in the field and in the blind (got some really cool video, too).

Whooping Crane "Men in White Suits"

Whooping Crane Puppet Head

Whooping Crane Puppet Head another view

There is no human contact allowed, so anyone working directly with the cranes must dress up in white suits and use a "Whooper" puppet head to imitate an adult crane. Even the pilot of the ultra-light is in a white suit when flying. Lets face it, these guys have no problem figuring out what to wear for Halloween.

You may have seen something like this in the movie “Fly Away Home”. That was a movie where Canadian geese were trained to migrate using an ultra-light. These are the same people that worked with those birds, and they have also trained sandhill cranes to migrate. It’s a good cause and they have helped revive a whooping crane population from an estimated number of 15 back in the early 1940s. In 1999, their population was estimated at 180. This program has helped to raise a little over 100 birds and some are now reproducing in the wild.

Right now, this project could use some help. No money is involved, but a few minutes of your time would be greatly appreciated. Chase Bank is currently sponsoring a competitive grant where they are giving away $5 million US to charitable organizations. Basically, the organizations with the most votes (the top 196) will get a grant. The more votes they get, the bigger slice of the pie. If you have a Facebook account, you can vote here:

https://apps.facebook.com/chasecommunit ... a1d2ed9d4d

I think you get two votes to begin with and you must cast them for different charities. I was told that you will also be able to cast one vote a day until the polls close on September 19th (I haven’t checked that one out, yet). There are many other great charities here.

If you have a Chase online account, you’ll get additional votes here:

https://www.chasegiving.com

Use Operation Migration or 16-1560518 in the search function of the chasegiving site to find this charity. Any help is greatly appreciated.

Now I am back on schedule to practice guitar.

Thanks,

Hydroman52


willem
Posts: 5
Joined: Fri Mar 20, 2009 7:53 am
Status: Offline

Wed Sep 12, 2012 12:03 pm

you must change your profilefoto Rick.


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