Sandhill Crane

About the sandhill crane

The sandhill crane is a large crane found across North America and, in small numbers, in extreme northeastern Siberia. Its name comes from its habitat: the Sandhills region along Nebraska's Platte River, where up to 450,000 lesser sandhill cranes stop over each year during migration, the most important gathering point for that subspecies in the world. Adults are gray overall, though during the breeding season their plumage often looks worn and stained, taking on a nearly ochre tone in migratory populations. They have red foreheads, white cheeks, and long, dark, pointed bills, and in flight their long dark legs trail behind them while their long necks stay straight. Immature birds lack the red forehead and instead show reddish-brown upper parts with gray underparts, which makes it possible to tell young birds from adults even at the same height.

Taxonomically, the sandhill crane was long placed in the genus Grus, but a 2010 molecular study found that grouping to be unnatural, and the species was moved, along with three relatives, into the resurrected genus Antigone. Five subspecies are recognized, spread from northeastern Siberia and Alaska through northern Canada to Baffin Island, and south to resident populations in Cuba, Florida and Georgia, and Mississippi, plus a migratory population across southern Canada and the west-central United States. A 2025 genetic study found a deep divide between inland and coastal populations, driven by geographic barriers that limit gene flow between them; the two groups also differ in size, coloring, facial structure, behavior, and preferred habitat, and the study's authors argue that conservation planning should reflect that internal diversity rather than treat the species as one uniform population.

Size varies considerably between subspecies. A female of the nominate lesser sandhill crane averages 3.46 kg (7.6 lb), 94 cm (37 in) in length, and 1.6 m (5 ft 3 in) in wingspan, while a male of the larger greater sandhill crane subspecies averages 5 kg (11 lb), 119 cm (47 in), and 2.12 m (6 ft 11 in). Sandhill cranes are also known for a loud, far-carrying trumpeting call that rolls in the throat, and mated pairs perform "unison calling," standing close together and calling in a synchronized duet in which the female makes two calls for every one from the male.

Behavior and diet

Sandhill cranes are social birds that typically live in pairs or family groups year-round. During migration and winter, unrelated birds join into loose "survival groups" that forage and roost together, sometimes gathering by the thousands at key stopover and wintering sites — one example is Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge in New Mexico, which holds an annual Sandhill Crane Festival each November around the birds' arrival. The species is also a strong, efficient flier, using rising columns of warm air, or thermals, to soar for hours with only occasional wingbeats, much like hawks and eagles.

Diet is mainly herbivorous but flexible with what's available. The birds feed with their bills down in shallow wetlands or upland habitat, rooting for seeds, and they readily eat cultivated crops such as corn, wheat, cottonseed, and sorghum; waste corn left in fields is a useful energy source as cranes fatten up for migration. Northern populations have the most varied diet, especially while breeding, adding berries, small mammals, insects, snails, reptiles, and amphibians.

Breeding pairs raise one brood a year; nonmigratory populations begin laying between December and August, while migratory birds typically start in April or May. Both parents build the nest from surrounding plant material, usually in marshes, bogs, or swales, and the female lays one to three eggs, usually two, which both parents incubate for about 30 days. Chicks are precocial, hatching with eyes open and able to leave the nest within a day; parents brood and feed them intensively for a few weeks, tapering off until the young reach independence around 9 to 10 months old and eventually leave the family group entirely 10 to 12 months after hatching. Sandhill cranes can also hybridize with the critically endangered whooping crane, though the resulting offspring are sterile — a risk that conservationists sometimes have to actively manage given both species' monogamous pairing habits.

Range and habitat

Sandhill cranes breed and winter across a wide swath of North America, from northeastern Siberia and Alaska through northern Canada to Baffin Island, with additional resident populations in Cuba, the Gulf Coast of the United States, and Florida and Georgia. The migratory population moves between breeding grounds in Canada and the northern U.S. and wintering grounds in the southwestern United States and Mexico; the birds are rare vagrants as far as China, South Korea, and Japan, and very rare vagrants to Western Europe.

By the 1930s, sandhill cranes had been largely wiped out east of the Mississippi River, but populations there have since rebounded substantially, reaching an estimated 98,000 birds in the region by 2018. The greater sandhill crane subspecies fell to probably fewer than 1,000 birds by 1940 but has since recovered to nearly 100,000. In Florida, the birds occupy pastures, open prairies, and freshwater wetlands from the Everglades to the Okefenokee Swamp. Overall, the lesser sandhill crane remains the most numerous crane species alive, with roughly 400,000 individuals continent-wide.

Conservation status

The sandhill crane as a whole is listed as Least Concern and is not considered threatened, but that status masks real variation within the species. The current list of endangered subspecies includes only two — the Cuban sandhill crane and the Canadian sandhill crane. Resident, nonmigratory populations are especially vulnerable because, unlike migratory birds, they cannot simply move to find secure breeding habitat if their home range is degraded; many such subpopulations were reduced by hunting or habitat change over the 20th century.

Predation adds further pressure on eggs and young, from corvids, gulls, raptors, foxes, coyotes, and raccoons, while adults face eagles, bobcats, and even invasive constrictor snakes in Florida. Sandhill cranes are legally hunted under permit in 17 states, including a lottery-draw season in New Mexico. Despite these threats, sustained recovery in numbers since the mid-20th century is the main reason the species overall is not considered at risk.