Common Crane
Common Crane: Large wading bird, gray overall with a black face, chin, throat and neck; shows a patch of bare red skin on crown. Broad white stripe extends from behind eye down back of neck. Black flight feathers and short tail are visible in flight. Bill is dull yellow and legs and feet are black.
● Song:
No data available.
● Foraging & Feeding:
Common Crane: Feed preferably on seeds, berries, grain, and young shoots. Frequentlyeats insects and mollusks, occasionally takes small mammals, fish, and frogs. Chooses dry places to look for food.
● Breeding & nesting:
Common Crane: Two brownish or olive eggs spotted with red brown are laid in a grass nest placed in shallow water, set on reeds, or in a thicket. Sometimes the same nest is used for several years. Incubation takes about 30 days and is carried by both sexes in turn - female incubates at night and male during the day. Both parents feed the young. These birds have one brood per year.
● Similar species:
Common Crane: Sandhill Crane has gray body, red bare skin on crown, forehead and lores, lacks black-and-white pattern on head and neck, and only primary feathers on wings are black. Juveniles are very similar but Common Crane has black in the entire trailing edge of the wing.
Flight Pattern
Straight flight with deep even wing beats, slow downstroke, and quick upstroke., Flies in V formation during migration.
● Range & Habitat:
Common Crane: This species breeds in northern parts of Europe and western Asia. It is a long distance migrant wintering in Africa and southern Europe. In North America it appears as an accidental vagrant to central Alaska, western Canada, the Great Plains, and the Midwest. Numbers in Europe have declined over the last 300 years because of disturbance, shooting and drainage. Common Crane breeds on forest clearings, bogs and other wetlands, fields and meadows with ponds. In migration stays on open arable land or grassland with scattered trees.