Grus grus (Linnaeus, 1758)

The common crane (Grus grus), also known as the Eurasian crane, is a bird of the family Gruidae, the cranes. The bird is overall slaty grey in appearance. The forehead and lores are blackish with a bare red crown and a white streak extending from behind the eyes to the upper back. The most widely distributed of all cranes, the common crane is a large and impressive waterbird with a long neck, beak and legs. The plumage is mainly slate grey, with black flight feathers, the innermost of which are greatly elongated, forming a drooping, bushy ‘cloak’ over the tail. In contrast, the neck, chin and throat are dark grey to black, with a black forehead and a distinctive white stripe that runs from behind the eye, down the neck and to the upper back. The top of the head bears a red patch of bare skin, and the eye is also bright red or reddish-brown. The juvenile common crane has yellowish-brown tips to its body feathers, lacks the drooping wing feathers and the bright neck pattern of the adult, and has a fully-feathered crown. The calls of this species are loud, trumpeting and quite penetrating. [Meine, C.D. and Archibald, G.W. (1996) The Cranes: Status Survey and Conservation Action Plan. IUCN, Gland, Switzerland, and Cambridge, UK. Available at: http://www.npwrc.usgs.gov/resource/birds/cranes/index.htm] [del Hoyo, J., Elliott, A. and Sargatal, J. (1996) Handbook of the Birds of the World. Volume 3: Hoatzin to Auks. Lynx Edicions, Barcelona]. [Peterson, R.T., Mountfort, G. and Hollom, P.A.D. (2001) A Field Guide to the Birds of Britain and Europe. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, Boston, Massachusetts] [Johnsgard, P.A. (1983) Cranes of the World. Indiana University Press, Bloomington. Available at: http://digitalcommons.unl.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1017&context=bioscicranes] [International Crane Foundation: Eurasian Crane (June, 2009) http://www.savingcranes.org/eurasiancrane.html]