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During migration, you may find Whooping Cranes at classic stopover sites such as Nebraska’s Platte River. Look for Whooping Cranes among much larger numbers of Sandhill Cranes, which are themselves a thrilling sight for a bird watcher.
- ID Info
ID Info - Whooping Crane Overview, All About Birds, Cornell...
- Life History
Life History - Whooping Crane Overview, All About Birds,...
- Sandhill Crane
Whether stepping singly across a wet meadow or filling the...
- Sounds
Sounds - Whooping Crane Overview, All About Birds, Cornell...
- ID Info
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Is a whooping crane a migrating bird?
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One of the rarest North American birds, and also one of the largest and most magnificent. Once fairly widespread on the northern prairies, Show more. Conservation Statistics. 3Available Maps. 2Related Links. Whooping Crane. Grus americana. Species Migration.
Whooping cranes live and travel alone, in pairs, as families or in flocks of 50 or more birds during migration as A.J. Caven and others documented in 2020. Cornell University also note that sometimes whooping cranes will flock with sandhill cranes, spending their time on the ground and in shallow water.
Whooping crane, (Grus americana), tallest American bird and one of the world’s rarest. At the beginning of the 21st century fewer than 300 whooping cranes remained in the wild. Most are part of a flock that migrates between Texas and Canada. Almost all the rest are part of a mainly nonmigrating.
- The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica
Migration & Range Maps. Migrates by day, in family groups or small flocks. Travels along rather narrow corridors and makes traditional stopovers. Although they may travel in flocks, in winter they mostly separate out into family groups, each pair of adults defending a feeding territory against intruding cranes.
In 2023, there are approximately 506 Whooping Cranes in the wild migratory flock that breed in Wood Buffalo National Park in Canada and winter at Aransas National Wildlife Refuge in Texas. An additional 296 birds are in captivity or part of reintroduction efforts in eastern North America.
A captive-raised, non-migratory population exists in central Florida, and a small population of Whooping Cranes form an eastern migratory population that moves between Wisconsin and Florida. (Learn more about the latter flock from Operation Migration.)