Several Crittenden County residents reported seeing a couple of ultralight aircraft leading migratory birds last weekend. Some said they were geese, but they were actually whooping cranes. The activity was witnessed in Crittenden skies over the central part of the county from Sturgis to the Moore Hill area and around Frances.
The cranes and their ultralight leaders had stopped over for a rest in Union County and set back off on their 800-miles journey from a central Wisconsin wildlife refuge to St. Mark’s National Wildlife Refuge on the Gulf Coast of Florida. The birds are from a captive breeding program and being taught how to migrate. It's not an unusual concept. Over the last couple of decades, geese and other migratory birds have been force-fed a similar trip to the deep South.
Arriving in Marshall County on Saturday after a stop in Union County, the migration has been on hold pending weather with lighter winds to allow safer operation of the two ultralight aircraft, according to Paducah Sun outdoors writer Steve Vantreese an article published today.
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Ultralights are little more than motorized hanggliders with tricycle-like landing gear and dual seats, Vantreese wrote. They can travel at the average 32 mph at which the cranes tend to fly.
