Sarus Crane (Eastern)

Description:

This tall crane may stand as tall as six feet. The body is gray with the upper neck and parts of the head covered in red skin. There may be a pale ring of white mid-neck just below the red.

Habitat:

Wetlands of Southeast Asia. There are two related races that live in India and Australia.

Notes:

I went back far into my archives to find this photograph. I was working on education and bird survey projects at the Tram Chim Reserve (now Tram Chim National Park), Vietnam. On this particular morning I had set up a blind (hide) in the vicinity of a dry field at which the Sarus Cranes had been feeding on tubers. Arriving before daybreak so the birds wouldn't spot me entering the nest, I had the delightful experience of hearing their calls (which can be heard at two miles distance) as they lifted off their wetland roosts to fly to the field that I was hiding near. They arrived a couple of minutes later. At this time there were only about 800 of this race in existence and this was the only place where they wintered. Since then, at least two other locations have been found that harbor a few of these magnificent birds. On the other hand, they have been recently extirpated from several other locations. See http://www.savingcranes.org/sarus-crane.... for more information.