Birds and Birding's Guide to:

Watching THE CRANE-LIKE BIRDS

THE CRANES, COURLANS, AND TRUMPETERS

Asiatic White Crane

Quite similar to our Whooping Crane, but longer, and with the hinder part of the crown feathered, is the Asiatic White Crane (G. leucogeranus), which is sometimes placed in a separate genus (Sarcogeranus). According to Hume, who observed it in India, this species differs distinctly in that the windpipe is not convoluted within the breast-bone, but divides into two nearly equal tubes about three inches before it enters the lungs.

As a result its notes are very weak as compared with those of any other Crane, being simply whistles,”from a mellow one to a peculiar feeble shrill shivering whistle.”While in its winter home it frequents especially the shallow rain-water lakes, where it feeds very largely on aquatic and other forms of vegetation, its snowy white plumage making it ever an object of interest. The nest of this species as observed in Siberia is made among dense reeds of various layers of these plants, and the eggs,, two in number, are gray, streaked with dusky lines.

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