It has been an interesting fall season, with excessive rain and multiple days of unseasonably warm weather. Some local residents have been referring to our weather as "wild", crazy or some other adjective. However, all around us many wildlife species are also "going wild".

In the fall, young mammals that were born this spring disperse from the adults looking for their own territory or home range. For animals such as raccoons this hunt for a place of their own includes looking for a warm den for the winter. So be on the watch for raccoon and squirrels that may be checking out your home as a winter den. Seal up holes in the overhands of your home and make sure vents and chimneys are appropriately screened.

I certainly don't mean to imply that you are going to experience an animal invasion, but it is much easier to keep wildlife out of your home than to evict them. The University of Illinois Extension's "Living with Wildlife" website at http://web.extension.uiuc.edu/wildlife/ can provide you with additional techniques for dealing with conflicts with wildlife.

Another" wild" thing happening throughout Illinois right now has to do with white-tailed deer. First, the fall is the breeding season for this animal, so behavior changes occur with the bucks or males throwing caution to the wind. They may cross roads without regard to your car rapidly approaching. Additionally, both bucks and does, or females, also move from the summer portion of their home range or territory to winter habitat. The message is simple, drive with extra caution at dusk through dawn while deer are "going wild", and when you see one deer more may be following.

The last wild thing worth mentioning involves a partnership of man and nature. A team of scientists from Canada and the United States are leading a group of 20 whooping cranes to Florida using ultralight aircrafts. Currently the birds and scientists are in Winnebago County in northern Illinois, and in the coming days, depending on the weather, will be traveling through central Illinois.

Some of you may remember this scene from last year during the led migration of the 2008 young whooping cranes. If not, you might be asking, "Why go to all this trouble?"

Whooping cranes are one of the world's rarest birds. In fact, the whooping crane population in the United States had fallen to 21 birds in 1941, all of which were located in a western flock in the Great Plains region.

Prior to this project, scientists were concerned that a natural disaster might eliminate the whole flock, causing extinction of the whooping crane. Therefore, the goal of the project is to establish a second flock in the eastern United States, where the birds once occurred naturally.

Scientists on the Necedah National Wildlife Refuge in central Wisconsin raise the whooping cranes from chicks, while using techniques not to allow the cranes to see their human partners. The birds are trained to follow an ultralight plane and are led on their first migration to Florida to imprint the migration path.

If you would like to follow this year's migration, to see when the whooping cranes will be passing through central Illinois, go to http://www.operationmigration.org/ and check the "In the Field" report.

Stop and take time this fall to enjoy things going "wild" in central Illinois. If you have questions or need more information contact the University of Illinois Extension Champaign County Unit office at 333-7672.