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Project Noah Nature School
Grus rubicunda
The Brolga is a tall, mid-grey to silver-grey crane, 0.7–1.3 m high and a broad red band extending from the straight, bone-coloured bill around the back of the head. They were called the Australian crane by John Gould
The Brolga is a common gregarious wetland crane found in tropical and eastern Australia.
This is a captive bird from the Taronga Zoo in Sydney
Spotted on Apr 10, 2012
Submitted on Jun 18, 2012
4 Comments
Hello Ranger Alice. You are absolutely correct. The red looks a bit like feathers because it is textured but it is very lumpy skin, a bit like the comb tissue found on fowl. Here is a close up; http://www.flickr.com/photos/andrewyoung...
And I'll bet the red is skin not feathers!
They do look similar auntnance. Your pic looks great.
Thanks for sharing, Martin; I'd never seen one of these beauties before now. Much like a light version of our sandhill crane:
http://www.projectnoah.org/spottings/811...