Ardmore Gives a Whoop


Naturalist program students got to see some of the rarest birds on the planet today. We met up with the Birmingham Audubon Society at Wheeler National Wildlife Refuge in hopes of spotting some whooping cranes. 

The birds very nearly went extinct due to habitat loss. At one point, the world population of individual whooping cranes dipped into the twenties. Now there are over 500 of the cranes worldwide, and 20-30 of them make stops in Alabama at the refuge each winter.  

We got lucky and saw about 5 of them, along with thousands of sandhill cranes, some egrets, a hawk, and a great blue heron. It was fun to have bird experts along to answer all of our questions. 

It was COLD (by Alabama standards), so it was nice that part of the morning was spent in Wheeler’s observation building- a toasty warm, glass-sided building equipped with scopes.


This naturalist program was built with the support of AMV RC&D and Dekko.

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