So glad your friend is OK and I'm also sending thoughts and prayers to all involved.

New pics of Cheyenne posted today but still no sightings of Seneca since December.

Love the names!  I submitted Faith and Freddy in the naming contest.

Yahoo, your good! 

Not good, just lucky.  I figured with Hope-either Faith or Charity would be good choices to go with.  I guess Jason is the guy who does a lot for the bears and cam so they honored him.

Love the names!  I submitted Faith and Freddy in the naming contest.

  

Is Tory the only bird you got to see, MAK?  They brought her out for us to see when we were there last year. Nice memorial (?) brick!

No Chris, we saw all their occupants. They don't normally let people take pictures but Terry gave us permission. I limited myself to just the falcon pics. The bricks are in memory of Joyce's mom from Donna, Janet and I.

We took pics last year of all the birds (and Bobcat) we saw but not all were on display the day we were there. Didn't know we couldn't take pics and no one told us different. Nice about the brick for Joyce's mom.
Kris

Wow, cool pics MAK. What's Tory's story? Love the brick!

Can anyone get one of those bricks? We got one for Dad from the zoo a few years back and are always on the look-out for gifts for The Man Who Has Everything!

You can also purchase a sponsorship through their Adopt-a-Bird program for any wildlife there.  We bought one as a Christmas gift this year.  The recipient gets notification of the gift, a picture of the sponsored bird with its biography, an adoption certificate and a years subscription to their quarterly news.  A great gift also!

Is Tory the only bird you got to see, MAK?  They brought her out for us to see when we were there last year. Nice memorial (?) brick!

Hope you had a very Happy Birthday, Anne!   

Another endangered whooping crane -- part of a breeding program to repopulate the species -- was found shot to death in the marshes of Alabama, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said. Over the past 14 months, a total of six cranes have been shot dead.

The whooping crane discovered last week, identified by the Fish and Wildlife Service as #22-10 because it was the 22nd to be hatched in 2010, was released last year in Wisconsin to migrate with other adult whooping cranes, federal investigators said Friday.

It was discovered in the same area as another whooping crane that was found shot to death late last month; investigators consider the deaths linked.

 
The crane discovered last month, #12-04, was an adult male who had learned how to migrate behind an ultralight aircraft flown by Operation Migration, a partner in a group formed to increase whooping crane numbers.

That crane made its first migration to Florida in 2004, wintering there for five years until it started spending winters on the marshes around Weiss Lake, Ala., where the Fish and Wildlife Service said it was found dead. The crane had nested with a female in the spring, producing a chick that did not survive.

"This is a six-year-old bird, one of a couple of dozen that are old enough, sexually mature, and could breed," Liz Condie of Operation Migration told the St. Petersburg Times.

"This crane had a chick. Could this be any freaking worse?" Condie said.

Three cranes -– two males and a female that hatched in 2010 -- were found shot to death in Calhoun County, Ga., on Dec. 30.

In November 2009, a crane hatched in 2002 and led south by an ultralight was found shot to death in Vermillion County, Ind. That crane had hatched and raised the first wild whooping crane in the eastern United States in more than a century, according to the Whooping Crane Eastern Partnership.

Operation Migration and the Whooping Crane Eastern Partnership work together in the effort to increase whooping crane numbers.

Sponsored LinksThe chicks are painstakingly raised by handlers who costume themselves as cranes in order to keep the birds from becoming too trusting of humans. They then learn the migratory route by either following an ultralight plane flown by a costumed pilot or by following wild adult whooping cranes and sandhill cranes, according to the Fish and Wildlife Service.

The cranes are tagged with transmitters and leg bands to track their movements. A variety of private groups are offering a reward -- now at $23,250 -- for information about the deaths.

"The amount of effort that goes into a program such as this -- hatching young, raising them, teaching them to migrate -- is absolutely huge," Tom MacKenzie, a spokesman for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, told the St. Petersburg Times.

"The loss of any of those birds to nonnatural causes is not acceptable."

  bguitar

Did Archer first arrive in Rochester the previous season (Feb. of 09?). Isn't that when all the drama began?  And when poor Mariah was injured in April? 

Yes, but it was also late, relatively speaking.  Mariah had been seen in February with "whiney tiny guy" and Tybropa-Cree.  Archer didn't show up until after Tybropa-Cree was killed by a car.  I don't have time to dig right now, but it was in March if I recall correctly.

I believe that Archer was first seen with Mariah on Mar. 21, 2009.

Welcome, Penelope! 

Fly free, Buzz. 

I'm really glad that Hope is being good with them as reports from this summer was that she was very mean to her mother.  This is quite extraordinary to have a mixed group like this-very rare they say.  I can't believe how big the cubs are getting!! Glad you enjoyed!