Whooping cranes in Wisconsin

Jim Gage found a pair of whooping cranes feeding in a field at the Horican Marsh on the morning of May 29, 2014.

This photo released by Dr. Richard Urbanek shows two adult whooping cranes with their young at Necedah National Wildlife Refuge in Wisconsin in June 2006. A pair of whooping cranes has hatched two chicks in central Wisconsin, marking the first young of the species to be hatched in the wild in the eastern United States in more than 100 years.

An adult whooping crane wings across the sky with a group of sandhill cranes near Horicon Marsh in August 2013. Only 110 wild whooping cranes make up the eastern migratory flock, most of them here in Wisconsin.

Nine whooping cranes raised at the International Crane Foundation in Baraboo were released as part of the direct autumn release program at Horicon National Wildlife Refuge in 2013.

One of nine young whooping cranes released in Wisconsin in 2013 as part of the Whooping Crane Eastern Partnership direct autumn release program tests his wings in the autumn winds.

Necedah National Wildlife Refuge received a $210,000 in 2014 to study whooping crane nesting habits.

Tom Garvin of Marshfield photographed this whooping crane foraging in the reeds at McMillan Marsh in 2013.

The right wing of a formation of whooping cranes in flight as they pass directly overhead as Operation Migration continue to train the birds at the Necedah Wildlife Refuge for their Florida trip departure in 2006.

A whooping crane family at the International Crane Foundation as seen during a tour by the fourth-grade class from Nekoosa's Alexander Middle School in 2006.

The ultralight planes of Operation Migration attempted to lead a group of cranes out of the Necedah National Wildlife Refuge with mixed results in 2007. The lead plane, shown here, leads six of the 17-strong flock on the first leg of the long journey to Florida. A number of the birds remained on the ground, reluctant to follow the leader.

Two stragglers, part of a flock of young, rare whooping cranes, follow an ultralight "parent" out of the Necedah National Wildlife Refuge.

In this Sunday, Nov. 18, 2012 photo provided by U.S. Geological Survey, juvenile whooping cranes hatched at the USGS Patuxent Wildlife Research Center, are acclimated with wetland habitats in captivity in Laurel, Md. They are soon to be shipped to Louisiana for release.

A female whooping crane strides through a wetlands area at the International Crane Fouundation near Baraboo.

The "Royal Family" of whooping cranes at Necedah Wildlife Refuge fly away from the enclosure where the young birds are housed.

Whooping cranes in a field 1/2 mile north of Highway 73 on Highway Y west of Green Lake.

Whooping cranes in a field 1/2 mile north of Highway 73 on Highway Y west of Green Lake.