Whooping Crane

The Whooping Crane is the tallest bird in North America, standing up to about 1.5 meters, with immaculate white plumage set off by black wingtips visible in flight, a red crown, and a dark facial 'mustache' mark. Its name comes from its loud, far-carrying whooping call.

The species is one of the most celebrated conservation success stories in North America, having declined to as few as around 15-21 individuals in the wild by the 1940s before intensive protection, captive breeding, and reintroduction efforts helped the population slowly recover, though it remains Endangered.

Key field marks

• Very tall, entirely white body with black primary flight feathers visible in flight
• Red bare crown patch and a black 'mustache' stripe near the base of the bill
• Long dark legs and a long, straight, dark bill
• Flies with neck extended, unlike herons or egrets

Similar species

The Sandhill Crane is grey rather than white and lacks black wingtips. Snow Goose and American White Pelican are both white with black wingtips but are much smaller (goose) or have a huge orange bill and pouch (pelican) and do not fly with the long, extended crane silhouette.

The only self-sustaining wild migratory population of Whooping Cranes breeds in the wetlands of Wood Buffalo National Park in northern Canada and winters along the Texas Gulf Coast at Aransas National Wildlife Refuge, undertaking one of the longest migrations of any crane species, roughly 4,000 km round trip.

Additional reintroduced, non-migratory and migratory populations have been established in Florida, Louisiana, and a route between Wisconsin and Florida (the latter aided historically by ultralight-led migration training of captive-reared birds), as part of ongoing efforts to build redundancy into the species' recovery.

Whooping Cranes forage in shallow wetlands and coastal marshes for crabs, fish, frogs, insects, and plant matter including waste grain in agricultural fields, and are highly territorial while breeding, defending large wetland territories from other cranes.

Their call is a loud, resonant, bugling 'whoop' that can carry for several kilometers, produced by an elongated trachea coiled within the breastbone. Pairs perform elaborate dancing displays, including bowing, jumping, and wing-flapping, and generally mate for life. Nests are built on the ground in marshes, typically with a clutch of two eggs, though usually only one chick survives to fledging. Both parents share incubation and chick-rearing duties.