Blue Crane

The blue crane is a tall, ground-dwelling bird, pale blue-gray with long wingtip feathers that trail to the ground. It stands 100 to 120 cm tall and is fairly small for a crane. The species lives in dry grassy uplands, including pastured hills, valleys and plains with scattered trees, and is the national bird of South Africa. It feeds mostly on grasses and sedges, but also takes insects such as grasshoppers and occasionally small animals. Pairs form after a courtship dance in which both birds fling objects into the air and jump. Both parents incubate the usually two eggs.

About the blue crane

The blue crane is a fairly small, pale blue-grey crane that lives almost entirely in South Africa, where it is the national bird. It belongs to the crane family, Gruidae, and has the most restricted range of all 15 crane species. It is listed as Vulnerable after a steep decline that began around 1980.

Its scientific name is Grus paradisea, though it has long been known as Anthropoides paradiseus, a genus it once shared with the demoiselle crane. Older names include the Stanley crane and the paradise crane.

By crane standards it is fairly small. Adults stand 100–120 cm (3 ft 3 in–3 ft 11 in) tall, span 180–200 cm (5 ft 11 in–6 ft 7 in) across the wings and weigh 3.6–6.2 kg (7.9–13.7 lb). Unlike most cranes it has a relatively large head on a thin neck, which gives it a distinctive, top-heavy profile.

Plumage

The body is a soft, pale blue-grey that darkens on the upper head, neck and nape, while the crown and the area in front of the eyes are noticeably paler, sometimes almost white. The bill is ochre to greyish with a pink tinge.

The most striking feature is the long wingtip feathers. These long plumes trail behind the bird to the ground. The flight feathers are black to slate grey. Juveniles look similar but paler, with a tawny wash on the head, and they lack the long trailing plumes.

Behavior and diet

Blue cranes are partly social. Outside the breeding season they gather in groups with a strict pecking order, and the larger adult males are dominant. During the nesting season pairs become far less sociable and fiercely territorial.

That territorial streak is remarkable. Nesting blue cranes will attack animals that pose no threat at all, including antelope, cattle, tortoises, plovers and even sparrows. People who get too close to a nest can be attacked too; aggressive males have torn clothing and drawn blood. The real threats to eggs and chicks come from monitor lizards, egg-eating snakes, foxes, jackals, birds of prey, meerkats and mongooses.

What blue cranes eat

Blue cranes feed on the ground, and unlike many cranes they rarely forage near wetlands. Most of the diet is grasses and sedges, often whatever grows close to the nest. They regularly eat large insects such as grasshoppers, and they add crabs, snails, frogs, small lizards and snakes. That protein-rich food is often broken up and fed to the chicks.

Courtship and chicks

Breeding is strongly seasonal, with eggs recorded from October to March. Courtship often starts in October with prospective partners running in circles around each other. A male then dances, tossing objects into the air and leaping. Eventually a male and a female appear to choose each other and dance together, throwing objects and jumping, and mating follows about two weeks later.

Most nests hold two eggs, occasionally one or three. Both parents incubate: the male often sits at night and guards the territory by day while the female incubates. The eggs hatch after about 30 days. Chicks can walk at two days old and soon swim well. The mother does most of the feeding, regurgitating food for them. Young birds fledge at three to five months and stay with their parents until the next breeding season, when the adults chase them off.

Range and habitat

Of the 15 crane species, the blue crane has the most restricted distribution. Even rarer cranes, such as the Siberian crane and the whooping crane, cover far larger areas on their migrations. Most blue cranes today live in eastern and southern South Africa, with a small, separate population in the Etosha Pan of northern Namibia. Isolated breeding pairs occasionally turn up in five neighboring countries.

The species is a bird of dry, grassy uplands: grazed hills, valleys and plains with a few scattered trees. During the nesting season it prefers places with access to both upland grassland and wetland, but it feeds almost entirely in the dry areas. Its migration is mainly up and down slopes. Birds usually nest in grassland at about 1,300 to 2,000 m (4,300–6,600 ft) and move to lower ground for winter, though the details are poorly known.

Blue cranes share parts of their range with three other crane species, but how they interact with them, or with other large wading birds, is not known. For other cranes, see the grey crowned crane and the wattled crane.

Conservation status

The blue crane is listed as Vulnerable on the IUCN Red List, most recently assessed by BirdLife International in 2021. Since October 2021 it has also been classed as Moderately Depleted by the IUCN. About 26,000 birds remain, and the species is still common in parts of its historic range, but numbers fell suddenly from around 1980.

The losses have been severe in places. Over roughly two decades the blue crane largely disappeared from the Eastern Cape, Lesotho and Eswatini, and populations in the northern Free State, Limpopo, Gauteng, Mpumalanga and North West Province fell by up to 90%.

The main causes are human population growth, the conversion of grassland into commercial tree plantations, and poisoning. Some poisoning is deliberate, to protect crops; some is accidental, from baits meant for other animals or from crop dusting. South Africa has strengthened legal protection for the species, and conservation work focuses on research, habitat management, education and enlisting private landowners. The blue crane is also covered by the Agreement on the Conservation of African-Eurasian Migratory Waterbirds (AEWA) and is listed on CITES Appendix II.

A cultural symbol

The bird carries deep meaning in South Africa. The Xhosa call it indwe. A man who distinguished himself, for example in battle, could be honored by a chief with blue crane feathers, and Zulu kings and warriors also wore the plumes. South Africa's Isitwalandwe Medal, created to honor people who resisted apartheid, takes its name from a phrase meaning "the one who wears the plumes of the rare bird."