Ultralight Pilot Serves as Surrogate Mother to Cranes for Migration

Thursday, Oct. 31, 1996 | 11:59 a.m.

The biologist, rancher and ultralight pilot chirruped softly to them as they hatched five months ago at his family's ranch in Grace, Idaho. And he's taught them to migrate, leading them through Western skies from the helm of his nylon ultralight plane.

Their journey ended Wednesday at the Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge, 15 days and 750 miles south of their hatchery in Idaho and about 80 miles south of Albuquerque.

"I had some that would drop over the wing and fly right next to me, their wing almost touching my shoulder. It's been fun, but it's also very stressful," he said.

Clegg left his brood with a flock of their peers along the marshy banks of the Rio Grande.

"I have to hide from them. They're out there looking for me right now, and if they hear my voice they'll come on over," he said, peeking at the brood through binoculars.

Clegg is part of a team working on a $50,000-per-year project to revitalize dwindling numbers of endangered whooping cranes by teaching them to migrate and reintroducing them to the wild in the same way they did with the sandhill cranes.

"It's working real well with the sandhill cranes. We're hoping next year to be just as successful with the whooping cranes," said Jim Lewis, a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service biologist.

The project is funded by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the World Wildlife Fund of Canada, the National Biological Survey and private donors.

Last October, Clegg made his first migratory journey south, leaving with 11 sandhill cranes and arriving with nine after two were killed by golden eagles. He said four of those cranes migrated back to Idaho in the spring - a great success, as far as biologists were concerned. The fate of the other five remains a mystery.

This year's trip began in June, when the cranes hatched at Clegg's family's ranch in Grace, Idaho. The first sounds they heard, and the only sound they heard for weeks, was a gentle, vibrating "brrr, brrr," from Clegg, who was imitating recorded bird calls.

When he couldn't sit with the chicks himself, assistants played recorded versions of his maternal sounds.

Clegg said the birds were brought regularly to fields at the ranch - where his parents farm - and taught to fend for themselves.

Their migration began 15 days ago, with Clegg piloting an ultralight plane carrying 12 gallons of fuel, a ground crew keeping watch from the road and a second ultralight trailing him to watch out for golden eagles, which prey on cranes.

Eagles were spotted four times, and twice they actually dropped in and attacked the flock, but Clegg said the trailing plane managed to dive at them and chase them off.

At night, they would set up pens to keep the birds from taking off. And by day they would fly, if weather allowed. This year, storms kept them grounded for two days near Park City, Utah, and three days in Gallup, N.M.

By the time they reached Bosque del Apache, only six birds were flying. Two of the eight finished the trip in a van because they couldn't keep up, refuge spokesman Charlie Keller said. All eight were reunited Wednesday.

A similar journey was portrayed this year in the movie "Fly Away Home," about an estranged father and daughter who help a flock of geese migrate. It's based on a real-life Canadian sculptor who has spent a decade or so teaching orphaned geese how to fly south.

Clegg, whose trip this year took 15 days, said that at stops along the way, people assumed he was leading wild geese as in the movie.

But unlike the girl in the movie who fell in love with her geese, Clegg said Wednesday he worked to avoid any sentimental attachment to his birds, although he said leaving them did sadden him a bit.

"They did imprint on me, after all," he said. "Up until today, I've been their mother."