Birds Posters
Cranes
Cranes are a family of large, long-legged and long-necked birds in the order Gruiformes.
Grey-crowned cranes are usually found in grasslands close to bodies of water.
They prefer to nest near bodies of water that provide cover. However they often feed in open savannas and grasslands.
Both sexes of breeding adults are similar except the male is slightly larger.
Breeding adult grey-crowned cranes are known for their large yellow crowns. Each feather of the crown is tipped with black.
The Common Crane is also known as the Eurasian Crane.
In Great Britain it became extinct in the 17th century, but a tiny population now breeds again in the Norfolk Broads and is slowly increasing.
It has a dancing display, leaping with wings uplifted.
Generally, cranes are large birds, ranging from a length of 90 cm to 150 cm.
Anthropoides virgo is known to be the smallest crane, with an average adult length of 90 cm.
Cranes are recognized for their long necks and legs, their streamlined bodies, and long rounded wings.
Demoiselle cranes can be distinguished by specific physical features and other unique characteristics.
Most cranes have bare, red skin patches on their heads, however, demoiselles have a completely feathered head with a white line that extends from the corner of their red eye, to the back of their head.
Whooping Cranes are the tallest birds in North America. Males stand nearly 5 five feet tall with a wingspan of up to 7.5 feet.
They normally lay two eggs but only raise one chick, so biologists have had some success removing the extra eggs, artificially incubating them, and raising them in captivity.
Grus japonensis is the second rarest crane in the world. They can be found at the Amur River basin in eastern Russia and in southeastern Asia, including China and Japan.
Red-crowned cranes nest and feed in marshes with deep water. This habitat preference is rare for cranes; most of their close relatives prefer shallow water.
These cranes have white bodies with black on the tips of their wings and necks. They are named because of the red circle on their heads, which is actually exposed skin.
Males and females look alike. Red-crowned cranes have very long and pointy beaks and can weigh up to twenty pounds.
Sandhill Cranes are noted for their elaborate courtship displays. Two displays are used to form mating pairs while three other displays occur only between mates and serve to maintain the pair bond.
They frequently preen with vegetation and mud stained with iron oxide resulting in a reddish brown color rather than their natural gray.
In North America, this species breeds as far north as Alaska and the Arctic coast of Canada south into the Great Lakes region and westward across Idaho, Nevada and Oregon.
Sandhill cranes are large birds with heavy bodies and long necks and legs. They stand about 1.2 m tall, with wing spans of about 2 m.
They are uniformly grayish, with a white cheek and a bald red crown.
Sandhill cranes can be distinguished from other large wading birds in flight by their outstretched neck, and their wingbeats, which are a slow downward beat followed by a quick upward flick.
Siberian cranes have three regional populations: eastern, central, and western. These populations range from arctic Russia in Yakutia to western Siberia.
The central population breeds on the basin of the Kunovat river in Russia.
These thin, white birds stand at 1.4 m and have wingspans of 2.1 to 2.3 m. Siberian cranes weigh 4.9 to 8.6 kg.
Adults can be identified by their white plumage with the exception of the primaries, which are black.