“This magnificent wading bird…is one of the most widely distributed birds occurring on the North American Continent. Its resounding… call is echoed from the beautiful palm-bordered marshes of the tropics to the eternally ice-bound islands of the Arctic seas. Thus it covers the full range of North American climatic conditions, and it is one of our two or three feathered examples of such highly developed adoption. Where ever this bird occurs it lends a charm to the wild solitudes that it frequents. “

Herbert Brandt Alaska Bird Trails.

The Sandhill Crane’s call also provides an echo into my youth when I used to drove from Champaign –Urbana, Illinois to the Jasper Pulaski Wildlife Reserve in northern Indiana to view them and listen to their haunting calls. Thus, when we again saw thousands of them at the Bosque del Apache NWR it was like a homecoming.

I first present close-up photos of the head to emphasize that the red cap is not due to red feathers but rather an absence of feathers. This bare skin gets even redder when the bird is excited. The next set of photos shows the whole bird is its statuesque beauty. In photo 9110 it is ruffling up it neck feathers. Finally, the last set shows progressively more and more of the birds in the field.

Other pages show the Juvenile Sandhill Crane, the Cranes at Dawn and the Cranes in Flight. The Bird Movies page shows different aspects of the Sandhill Crane behavior.

The juvenile Sandhill Crane (8922, 9066, 9088) is distinguished by it lack of a red head. It is brown instead. In addition, their body feathers have more brown than the adults.


For a wonderful illustrated account of Sandhlll Cranes across the United States I recommend Michael Forsberg’s On Ancient Wings.