Ten young whooping cranes raised in Maryland are taking to the air today, as federal wildlife biologists and technicians who've tended them since they were chicks release them in Louisiana to join the annual winged migration of their fragile species.
The gangly birds were reared at the U.S. Geological Survey's Patuxent Wildlife Research Center in Laurel, as seen in the photo above. Their "parents" were human caretakers wearing white crane-like costumes, who exercised them, took them for walks and swims and fed them as chicks using a bird puppet.