Red-crowned Crane

Grus japonensis (Müller, PLS, 1776)

120 cmLength240 cmWingspan8.8 kgWeight

The adult has mostly pure white body feathers, black secondaries and bright red bare skin on the crown.

Busiest months: December–February · Most records: China, Japan, Russia

Vulnerable

How to identify

Field marks

Bare skin on the crown bright red, brighter in the breeding season
Adult pure white overall, with black secondaries
The black “tail” seen when standing is actually the secondaries
Bill olive to greenish horn-colored; legs and feet gray-black

Male, female and young

Juvenile has rufous-yellow body feathers; immature has dull plumage, with the red bare area on the crown becoming increasingly vivid after 2 years of age.

Voice

Calls are very loud, used to proclaim territory and to communicate during courtship.

Where and when it's recorded

Red-crowned Crane has been recorded at 74 of the 8,171 birding hotspots we track, in 8 countries and regions.

Records by month Northern Hemisphere

To protect this bird from disturbance, we don't list exact sites.

Countries and regions with the most records

China Japan Russia South Korea Spain Mongolia Germany France

eBird records via GBIF up to 2024-12-31. A record means someone listed it; more records partly mean more birders, not more birds.

About

The red-crowned crane (Grus japonensis), also called the Japanese crane and the Manchurian crane, is a large Northeast Asian crane among the rarest cranes in the world. In some parts of its range, it is known as a symbol of luck, longevity, and fidelity.

Excerpt from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0 · authors · Read more on Wikipedia