Whooping Crane

The Whooping Crane is the tallest bird in North America, standing up to about a meter and a half high, and is famous both for its striking appearance and for being one of the continent's rarest birds. Adults are gleaming white with black wingtips, a bare red crown, and dark facial markings, and in flight they show black primaries and long trailing legs. The name comes from the loud, whooping bugle-like call that carries for great distances.

The species is one of the best-known stories in conservation. By 1941 the wild population had crashed to only around 21 birds, driven down by hunting and the loss of wetland habitat. Through decades of intensive protection, captive breeding, and reintroduction, numbers have climbed back to more than 800 birds across the wild migratory flock, reintroduced flocks, and captivity. It remains Endangered and dependent on continued management.

An adult Whooping Crane is unmistakable given its great height, snowy white body, red crown, and black wingtips visible in flight. Juveniles are washed with rusty cinnamon, especially on the head and neck. Cranes fly with the neck fully extended, unlike herons, which fold the neck back.

The Whooping Crane is named for its far-carrying call, a loud, trumpeting whoop produced by an exceptionally long windpipe coiled within the breastbone. Pairs perform a synchronized unison call, standing together and bugling in a coordinated duet that strengthens the pair bond and advertises territory. These resonant calls can be heard over several kilometers across open wetland.

The main self-sustaining wild flock breeds in and around Wood Buffalo National Park in northern Canada and migrates each autumn to winter on the Texas Gulf coast, chiefly at Aransas National Wildlife Refuge. Additional reintroduced populations have been established in the eastern United States and around Louisiana. The species depends on shallow freshwater and coastal wetlands for feeding and roosting throughout the year.

The Whooping Crane is omnivorous. On its Texas wintering grounds it relies heavily on blue crabs, clams, and other coastal invertebrates, while on the breeding grounds and during migration it takes insects, frogs, small fish, snails, aquatic plants, tubers, and waste grain from farm fields. It forages by walking slowly through shallow water and marsh, probing and gleaning as it goes.

Pairs are long-lived and mate for life, returning to the same breeding territory each year in the wetlands of northern Canada. They build a large mound of bulrushes and other vegetation in shallow water and usually lay two eggs, though typically only one chick survives to fledge. Both parents incubate for about a month and care for the young, which stays with them through the first migration south.

• Sandhill Crane: Grey rather than white, more numerous, and often shares migration routes
• Great Egret: White and long-legged but much smaller and flies with the neck folded back
• American White Pelican: White with black wingtips in flight but bulky with a huge bill and pouch