Sandhill Crane

The Sandhill Crane is a tall, long-necked, long-legged bird with predominantly grey plumage that is often stained rusty-brown from preening with iron-rich mud during the breeding season. Adults have a bare patch of red skin on the crown and white cheeks contrasting with a grey face and neck.

One of the most numerous crane species in the world, Sandhill Cranes are famous for their enormous migratory staging gatherings, most notably along Nebraska's Platte River, where hundreds of thousands of birds congregate each spring en route to northern breeding grounds.

Key field marks

• Tall, grey-bodied crane, sometimes rust-stained on the back and wings
• Bare red skin patch on the crown
• White cheek patch
• Long black legs and a long, straight, dark bill
• Flies with neck extended, often in large V-formations, giving a distinctive rolling bugle call

Similar species

The Whooping Crane is entirely white with black wingtips, unmistakably different in color. The Great Blue Heron is superficially similar in size and grey coloration but flies with the neck folded into an S-shape (unlike the crane's outstretched neck) and lacks the bare red crown.

Sandhill Cranes breed in wetlands, wet meadows, and open tundra across a broad swath of North America, from Alaska and northern Canada south through the northern United States, with additional resident, non-migratory populations in Florida, Mississippi, and Cuba.

Migratory populations winter in the southern United States and northern Mexico, funneling through key staging areas such as Nebraska's Platte River Valley, where enormous flocks gather each spring to rest and feed before continuing north.

Sandhill Cranes are omnivorous, foraging in fields and wetlands for waste grain, seeds, roots and tubers, insects, and small vertebrates such as frogs and mice. They often forage in family groups or large flocks outside the breeding season.

Their loud, rolling, bugling call carries for long distances and is produced by an elongated trachea that coils within the sternum, acting like a natural trumpet. Sandhill Cranes perform elaborate courtship dances involving bowing, leaping, and wing-flapping, and pairs typically mate for life. They nest on the ground in wetlands, building a mounded platform of vegetation, and usually lay two eggs, with both parents sharing incubation and raising the precocial chicks, known as colts.