Joe Duff, lead pilot report
November 8, 2015 Migration Day: 40
Location: Livingston County, IL With only six birds it should be easy to identify the troublemakers but flock dynamics and dominance structures are beyond me. WHY did birds refuse to climb for the first 3 migration legs and what makes them break and turn back.
For a while we thought #2 was the problem. So we boxed her to see if the others fell into line. That didn?t happen and when we let her out, she was the only one to make the complete leg.
That still may be the case but after her good performance we boxed #1.
She is the oldest bird and has developed her adult voice which elevated her in the dominance structure - and she has even started to challenge the aircraft with aggressive threat posturing like a teenager too big for her britches.
Sunday was my lead and I took off with 5 eager birds. They followed for a mile and abruptly turned back. We brought out the swamp monsters (Colleen and Heather) but the birds kept breaking off. I landed to start again.
Lou Cambier, our top cover pilot warned us that a layer of ground fog was heading our way and as we slowly climbed we passed through thin rows of silky fog about 200 feet up. My five birds turned into four, then three and finally one as they peeled off one by one and disappeared into the fog now over the pen. I made a wide sweeping turn but Brooke was closer and dropped in to the lead while #2 and I carried on.
Once she was out of the mix, the 4 remaining birds locked onto Brooke?s wing and headed on course. Was that because of her absence or were they just far enough from the pen to finally pay atrention? Or was the fog too unfamiliar for them and they followed Brooke out of insecurity?
A large bank of fog to the east channeled us southwest and for a while we were at the same altitude and a thousand feet apart. #2 was desperate to join her flockmates but I managed to keep her separate and as we cleared the fog, I increased the space between us.
LOL!!! Joe and who's the boss?#2 stayed behind the wing while we climbed to 1,000 feet but with all that easy flying, she had lots of reserve energy and decided to spend it on dominance. She dropped below the wing and began to pass me. I added power and pulled the wing back to go faster. Each time she went for the lead, I took it back. She would fall back and I would leave her there until she opened her beak to pant. Then I would slow and she would gratefully take the wing to rest. At some points we were flying at 54 mph, a good 16 mph faster than normal crane cruise speed.
Number 2 stayed on my wing for the last 15 miles, which took half an hour with the headwinds we had been fighting the entire way. We reached 3000 feet then began a slow descent. Coming down she had the advantage. While descending you can only fly so fast, so she led the way down. Still she stayed close and we landed next to the pen a good 20 minutes before Brooke. That gave me time to feed her grapes and make friends.
http://operationmigration.org/InTheField/2015/11/09/day-40-lead-pilot-reportOM field reportshttp://operationmigration.org/InTheField
Author
Topic: Whooping Cranes, Operation Migration (Read 113524 times)