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  Profile

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  In flight

Cranes & Waders

Black Crowned Crane

Balearica pavonina

• legendary
• 50 km/h
• Vulnerable

One of only two cranes that roost in trees. A golden straw crown, booming display calls, Vulnerable. Legendary for a reason.

Population

roughly 44,000-74,000 mature individuals (BirdLife/IUCN 2024 assessment), decreasing

Habitat

Freshwater marshes, wet grasslands, lake and river margins, rice paddies and other seasonally flooded open wetlands within the Sahel and Sudan-Guinea savanna zones; roosts and nests in trees near water.

Fun fact

Instead of digging for food, the Black Crowned Crane stomps its feet on the ground to flush invertebrates out of the soil.

Range

Sub-Saharan West and Central Africa in disjunct population pockets across the Sahel/Sudan-Guinea savanna belt, from Senegal and Guinea-Bissau east through Mali, Chad, Cameroon, Sudan and South Sudan to the Ethiopian highlands and south to Kenya and Uganda, with records as far south as the Democratic Republic of Congo (two subspecies: B. p. pavonina in West Africa, B. p. ceciliae in the east).

Diet

Omnivorous generalist: grass tips/seeds and shoots, insects (grasshoppers, locusts), other invertebrates (molluscs, millipedes, crustaceans), small fish, amphibians, reptiles and small mammals, plus waste grain from crops such as rice, corn and millet; often stomps its feet to flush invertebrates from the soil.

Size

1.05 m

Wingspan

1.9 m

Lifespan

25 years