Common crane

Where does the common crane live?

Home: in bogs, reed beds and wet forests.

In the wild it lives in these countries: Russia, Finland, Sweden, Estonia, Germany, Poland, Spain, France.

Conservation status from the IUCN: not in danger.

The short profile

Fully grown: about 100–130 cm tall. It weighs about 5 kilograms. On the menu: both plants and meat.

The story behind it

Common cranes nest on the ground in wet bogs, reed beds and swampy forest, often on a small island of plants with water all around, so that a fox cannot reach the eggs. A pair usually raises two chicks, which can walk and swim within a day or two of hatching. Cranes eat both plants and animals: roots, seeds, berries and grain, along with insects, snails and worms. In spring they dance, leaping into the air with half-open wings, bowing and tossing bits of grass about, and a pair often stays together for many years. Their trumpeting call is made in a windpipe that is extra long and coiled inside the breastbone, which is why it carries so far. In autumn tens of thousands gather at the same marshes and lakes in Germany, France, Hungary and Spain before moving further south. A crane flies with its neck stretched straight out, which is the easiest way to tell it from a heron.

Find it on the globe

Common crane is there as a tiny animated figure that breathes and looks around. From far away the planet is only a blue ball; detail arrives as you zoom in, and this one appears once you are close enough. Open it on the globe.

It sits at its real coordinates, not near them — the same numbers listed in the facts above. Switch off the layer for this kind of place and it disappears again; the buttons for that are down the right-hand edge.