EXERCISE WHOOPER FINN: FIELD REPORT NO. 7

We gladly left the lunatic ravings of our 'host' in Southern Illinois and moved on to Peru. Not the country, the town of Peru and the Illinois Valley Regional Airport. We were made very welcome even though our arrival temporarily interrupted their annual flour bombing competition. The temperature was around 90° F and the humidity was high. We broke with our usual custom of erecting the tents or sleeping in the hangar and decided to stay overnight in a local motel where we could sleep in the luxury of air conditioning and have our first shower for a week. The sky was cloudless for two days, but Chicago which was a little over 50 miles away, lived up to its reputation of being the Windy City. The hot humid wind blew hard across the runway night and day, with low-level wind shear and turbulence forecast. The aircraft stayed in the hangar.

We tried some ground research again and were more successful this time, finding most of the airstrips we looked for, but only two were suitable as stopovers for the cranes, It helped that this area was relatively flat and that there were less trees than Southern Georgia.

The weather window improved and we made good progress with the research as we flew northwards to Baraboo, Wisconsin. We hurried in to land at Wisconsin Dells Airport as the sky darkened ominously to the West. The hangars were full at the airport, a short discussion ensued about the approaching storm and we managed to shoe horn the aircraft into a corner anyway. The storm broke and we witnessed spectacular lightning. A small tornado started to form but fortunately it was not strong enough to touch down. We decided to eat out as the rain and wind made it difficult to camp . En route, through some very heavy rain, we spotted a truck in trouble. The driver had pulled over to avoid the worst of the storm, but what looked like a shallow puddle was in fact 2 feet deep and the truck was listing in the water. We rescued Eric and Colleen as their truck filled with water. They turned out to be from Calgary and were camping locally. We had an excellent evening waiting for the tow truck and their truck was extracted without too much damage.

Next day we visited the International Crane Foundation, where we got our first sight of Whooping Cranes. The ICF is set up to support conservation work of all 15 species of crane worldwide and they have projects working in all of the countries where cranes are under threat. A large part of their work is dedicated to rearing birds for release in the static flock in Florida. This requires great dedication amongst the aviculture specialists who spend hours each day dressed in 'Crane Costumes' using puppet crane heads to teach young chicks how to forage and how to be adult Whooping Cranes. They wear the costumes to prevent the birds becoming imprinted on humans and so that they are able to adjust to life in the wild without major problems. We were given the VIP tour of the facility and had an absolutely fabulous day looking at the cranes and the work of the ICF. The Whooping Crane exhibit is the best wildlife exhibit I have ever seen and I used three rolls of film. A crane habitat has been constructed with a pond in front of a viewing theatre. A pair of Whooping Cranes live in and around the pond, exhibiting what appeared to be normal behaviour. This included foraging for and eating the crayfish inhabiting the pond. This was a truly memorable day, made special by seeing the cranes rearing their own chicks in 'Crane City', watching and listening to them make their 'unison calls' and the truly generous way in which the team at ICF gave of their time to show us what they were doing.

The weather threatened to maroon us again as a line of severe thunderstorms moved in from the West. We decided to move on to complete the research phase as quickly as possible. We were scheduled to land near Neceedah National Wildlife Refuge, but when we landed the signs were ominous that a thunderstorm was brewing. A decision was made to fly around the developing storm system by first flying North into northern Wisconsin and then West to the border with Minnesota. We managed to beat the worst of the storms and landed at Rice Lake. The weather had other intentions and that night we experienced some of the heaviest rainfall we have yet seen. The tent area was flooded to a depth of 4 inches and a partial abandonment of the campsite was required. The rain persisted throughout the day and we suffered from being too close to Lake Superior, with its moist influence on the surrounding land. Another day was spent looking at low clouds and heavy rain.



The weather eased enough to make our escape from Rice Lake, but were forced to fly low (500feet) below a very low cloud ceiling, and again, had to fly West this time before turning North towards Canada. We were so low we could see deer grazing in the fields below. Our landing was at Aitkin, a beautifully kept airfield in Northern Minnesota, where we were well looked after and the people were really friendly. The mosquitoes welcomed us here in small squadrons, a product of the wet spring, which is apparently worse further North.

As the sun lifted the clouds we headed North, into some quite turbulent conditions. We were flying across very remote territory now and, as the turbulence grew worse we climbed to get over the clouds. At 10,000 feet the cloud tops were still above us and it was still turbulent. The cold started to penetrate the suits so we reduced altitude and returned to flying through the bumps. The landscape had changed below us to reveal miles of barren bogs and scrub trees. At one point we couldn't see any sign of human activity in a 360o arc, no roads - nothing. If the engine quit here it would have been a 30 mile hike through deep bogs and scrub forest to the nearest road - if you survived the landing!

We landed at Fort Frances, across the border in Canada and awaited a bemused customs officer who came to check us out. The weather again started to impinge and we were unable to take off due to low cloud and strong gusting wind. It was going to be a race against time and weather again. We will have a week to cover 1,000 miles to Edmonton and this will be against headwinds all the way.