Two chicks hatched in the wild [1]:

MILWAUKEE - A pair of whooping cranes has hatched two chicks in central Wisconsin, marking the first young of the species to be hatched in the wild in the eastern United States in more than 100 years.

The new arrivals will join about two dozen young cranes that will be added this year to a second migratory flock of the endangered birds that is being established in North America.

Operation Migration, the nonprofit group trying to build the flock, posted photos on its Web site showing two brown chicks being tended by their parents in the thick grass of the Necedah National Wildlife Refuge in central Wisconsin.

Here's the Operation Migration field journal [2].