Photo: Marianne Wellington	Meet the 2009 DAR Whooping Crane Chicks!
	Crane DAR #34-09
	Date Hatched	June 15 , 2009
	Gender	Female
	Pre-Migr. Weight: 4.2 Kg	Egg Source: USGS Patuxent WRC
	Permanent Leg Bands	Left Leg W/R Right Leg W/G/W
	Read more about the raising and naming of the DAR chicks. *Scroll to bottom for most recent history.*

Personality
DAR 34-09 hatched from an egg provided to the DAR project by USGS Patuxent Wildlife Research Center in Laurel, Maryland. Being the first of the chicks in this block, 34-09 was fairly aggressive when younger. Recently we have been able to exercise 34, 36 and 38-09 together. Until the permanent bands are attached, Chick 34-09 has double red bands on her right leg.

She was flying well by the end of August, along with most of the DAR chicks, and doing just great.

October weather brought sun, wind, rain and snow. The chicks seemed to enjoy testing their wings in the winds. Several days they birds made flights where they were almost out of view flying both to the north and south of their pen site. A couple of times they were out of view for a period of time, and someof the flew over to visit the ultralight chicks in their pen! We couldn't tell which chicks did that because they didn't get banded until Oct. 13. They are building up their flight strength in these final days or weeks before migration.

The nine DAR cranes were released on the evening of October 24 on the Necedah National Wildlife Refuge. Signals from the radio transmitters on the birds' leg bands will help biologists from ICF and the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service as they track movements of the released DAR cranes now and throughout their migration. Stay tuned!

Fall 2009: DAR 35-09 and 34-09 were released together on the west end of Pool 9 near adult #509. They roosted that night at this location with adults 303, 317, and 509. On October 28 they joined the other DAR juveniles at Site 3 and East Rynearson Pool (ERP) and remained in that general area. On November 1 they joined all DAR juveniles (except for two) and flew in undirected flight over Monroe and Juneau Counties for at least 70 minutes before returning to Site 3. Are they getting restless? Will they soon follow older cranes south to learn the migration route, as experts hope they will?

Notes by Marianne Wellington, ICF. Thank you!

Migration History

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