Whooping cranes continue their migration through Alabama

Just over a dozen people gathered on a small hill near off of Mt Pisgah Road in Walker County to view a flock of five juvenile whooping cranes as they followed behind two ultralight aircraft Thursday November 15, 2012 as they continued their journey south for the winter. Each year Operation Migration raises whooping cranes that were hatched in captivity and trains them to follow ultralight aircraft to train them to migrate south for the winter. - Frank Couch/fcouch@al.com http://bit.ly/QMnS8R

Environmentalists fight for whoopers' water

http://bit.ly/WaLqFX The whoopers are back, but even as the famed birds settle in at Aransas National Wildlife Refuge for what promises to be a mild winter, the legal controversy surrounding them lingers. - by Dianna Wray - DWRAY@VICAD.COM

Cranes star in annual festival

The Bosque del Apache community celebrates the "silver anniversary" of its popular Festival of the Cranes this week with six days of activities in and around the central New Mexico U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Refuge through Sunday. http://bit.ly/S0wpBY

Crane whisperer

Zhao Xisen has managed to help a pair of hooded cranes at Beijing Zoo conceive after seven years of infertility. Sun Ye finds out more. - By Sun Ye (China Daily) http://bit.ly/PzISLM

14 more whooping cranes to join flock in Louisiana

NEW ORLEANS - More than a dozen young whooping cranes are expected to arrive this fall in southwest Louisiana, doubling the number in a flock being reintroduced near the area where the state's last wild flock lived in the 1930s, the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries says. http://bit.ly/OCddMP

Rare whooping crane making a comeback

State officials are working to rebuild a historic population of whooping cranes in the marshes of southwest Louisiana, birds that haven't been seen in the state for more than 60 years.

http://bit.ly/P273Uc

N.W.T. whooping crane death investigated

An investigation is underway to find if a whooping crane in Wood Buffalo National Park in the Northwest Territories died because of an injury it received while being tagged for research.

http://bit.ly/U9AR1T

Early bird arrival offers hope for Sandhill cranes' future

Sandhill cranes have returned to their winter quarters in San Joaquin County earlier than ever.

Wind power takes precedence over protecting endangered cranes

Why is the U.S. government funding and promoting a plan to allow one of North America's rarest birds to be killed by wind turbines? While many environmentalists tout wind power as a source of green energy, the fact that wind turbines pose a threat to birds, including the highly endangered whooping crane, has received little notice.

Putin Pulls Off Latest Feat: Flying With the Birds

MOSCOW — Vladimir V. Putin is the unquestioned supreme leader of Russia, known for his icy stare and steely ways. But now Mr. Putin has taken on a new, perhaps more tender, leadership role. He has guided a flock of birds — through the air.