Brrrrr! It's COLD Up There! Joe Duff of Operation Migration Pilot Joe Duff wrote in his flight journal: The longer it takes us to reach the southern states, the colder the mornings. When it's your turn to lead, you are generally too focused to notice the cold. If they are all following one aircraft, the rest of us tag along behind with little to do but watch, so the coldest mornings are when the air is calm and the birds are behaving. The 35 mph (or more!) wind begins to eat away at your heat reserves, so dressing warmly is critical. Each of us have our own methods of maintaining body heat, but. . . It all starts with long johns under our flight suits. [Fleeces, snowmobile suits, parkas and other warm clothes can go over that.] The costume is always the outer layer. We wear insulated waterproof boots and keep hand warmers inside heavy mitts stuffed in fleece lined gauntlets attached to the control bar. (The hard part is when you have to remove the mitts to adjust the GPS or use the camera.) After Landing: Now Too HOT! If the winds are good and we can over fly a stop, we are generally airborne for 2 hours. After we land, we lead the birds off to an isolated spot until the ground crew arrives and gets the pen set up. If we have flown for 2 hours, that generally means they have to drive for 3 after packing up the pen at the last site. The set up at the new location takes roughly an hour, so the birds are not secured until sometime in the early afternoon. By this time it is often 70 degrees and we pilots are still dressed for sub zero conditions. If you pull your arms inside the costume, you can begin to remove some layers if you are desperate. I often speculate about what the birds think when their 'parents' begin to convulse and contort while standing ankle deep in mud. Try This! Put on several layers of warm clothing. Top it off by putting a sheet or blanket over it all, rather like the costume the pilots wear. Now try taking off some layers without letting the watching crane-kids know you are a human under all those layers!   Photo: Operation Migration Journey North is pleased to feature this educational adventure made possible by the Whooping Crane Eastern Partnership (WCEP). This Season Teachers Kids Orientation Registration Search Copyright 1997-2008 Journey North. All Rights Reserved. Questions or comments? Contact us.