altivo

Well, sorta. Went to the county Audubon society to hear a speaker from the International Crane Foundation talk about cranes and the work the foundation does. Big crowd, delayed presentation due to the usual fumbling with laptops, projectors, and Microsoft's ridiculous "improved" version of Office that writes files no one can read unless they've bought into it, but they finally got it going. Great photos of cranes displaying, being aggressive, doing their mating dance rituals, chicks hatching, etc. They now theorize that one reason for the decline of the whooping cranes may have been the climate change during the 20th century, as the black fly population has been emerging earlier and earlier and the swarming flies attack the incubating adults and the chicks when they hatch. In 1900, the flies weren't emerging until after the chicks had their first feathers, but now they emerge before the eggs hatch. :(

Cranes live much longer than I realized. One Siberian crane is documented to have lived more than 80 years in captivity. Typical lifespans in the wild may reach 20 years or more, but they need that because their mating and child rearing is inefficient (to say the least.) Most species lay only two eggs a year; and if both eggs hatch they typically manage to rear only one of them.

It was all quite interesting, and I was not in the least inclined to doze off (unlike the last time I went to a presentation there.) Consequently, now I need to sleep. Tomorrow is still a work day.

Oh, and it snowed all morning, but all of it melted. Then when I went to pick up my friend Susan to go to the lecture, it was sleeting. C'mon, this is April already. Last week it was 80F.