Grey Crowned Crane
Balearica regulorum
Grey Crowned Crane · Masai Mara · 19 February 2020
A pair of Grey Crowned Cranes with three chicks on the Mara grassland, which is a good brood; two is more usual, and often only one gets away. They are cranes of the wetlands and wet grasslands of East and Southern Africa, feeding on the open plains by day and roosting at night in trees.
They are the only cranes in the world that roost in trees, which they manage because they kept a hind toe long enough to grip a branch. Every other crane lost it. They are also endangered and falling fast: the wetlands they breed in are being drained for farming, the birds are taken for the cage trade, and the population is down by something like four fifths in thirty years.
Birds, insects, plants and other wildlife, mostly from Brooklyn, with some from further afield.
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