Sandhill Crane (Grus canadensis tabida)

The Sandhill Crane (Grus canadensis tabida) is a large crane of North America and extreme northeastern Siberia. They have the longest fossil history of any extant bird, with 9 million year old fossil recorded of birds no different than our modern Sandhill Cranes.

Three subspecies are resident; pulla of the Gulf Coast of USA, pratensis of Florida and Georgia and nesiotes of Cuba. Others migrate to the southwestern United States south to Mexico. The Platte River at the edge of Nebraska's Sandhills in the American midwest is an important stopover for up to 450,000 of these birds during migration. This crane is a rare vagrant to China, South Korea and Japan and a very rare vagrant to western Europe.

Adults are grey; they have a red forehead, white cheeks and a long dark pointed bill. They have long dark legs which trail behind in flight and a long neck that is kept straight in flight. Immature birds have reddish brown upperparts and grey underparts. The other large, grayish-bodied wader of North America is the Great Blue Heron. Although this heron is of similar dimensions to the sandhill and is sometimes given the misnomer "crane", it is extremely different in plumage, method of flight (it flies with it's neck tucked towards the body instead of extended) and general structure.

Size varies among the different races of Sandhill Cranes. A female of the race G. c. canadensis, or the Lesser Sandhill Crane averages 7.4 lbs, 39 inches in length and has a wingspan of 5.3 ft. A male of the race G. c. tabida or the Greater Sandhill Crane averages 11 lbs, 47 inches in length and has a wingspan of 7 ft. Both sexes look alike.

Their breeding habitat is marshes and bogs in central and northern Canada, Alaska, part of the midwestern and southeastern United States, Siberia and Cuba. They nest in marsh vegetation or on the ground close to water. The female lays two eggs on a mound of vegetation. Cranes mate for life; both parents feed the young, called colts, who are soon able to feed themselves. The Sandhill Crane does not breed until it is two to seven years old. It can live up to 25 years in the wild; in captivity they have been known to live more than twice that span. Mated pairs stay together year round, and migrate south as a group with their offspring.

These birds forage while walking in shallow water or in fields, sometimes probing with their bills. They are omnivorous, eating insects, aquatic plants and animals, rodents, seeds and berries. Outside of the nesting season, they forage in large flocks, often in cultivated areas.

This crane frequently gives a loud trumpeting call that suggests a French-style "r" rolled in the throat. Sandhill Cranes in flight can be differentiated from herons in that they fly with their necks extended and by their nearly constant calls.

Sandhill Cranes have been used as foster parents for Whooping Crane eggs and young in reintroduction schemes for that species, a project which failed as these foster-raised Whooping Cranes did not recognise other Whooping Cranes as their conspecifics-attempting instead, unsuccessfully, to pair with Sandhills.

Bald Eagles can weigh up to 14 pounds and attain a height of 3 to 3 1/2 feet. They have a huge wing span of 6–8 feet. Typically, the female of the species is larger that the male and bald eagles living in the north are believed to be larger than ones in the south. They can live up to 30 years in the wild and even longer in captivity.