Sandhill Cranes
From the archives...
UPDATE: Chicks hatched!
Posted June 3rd, 2009
Last night, between 7:50 and 8:10, from our camera monitoring station, we witnessed the hatching of the first egg. It was a very hot day for the crane parent on daytime incubation duty, who panted in the heat, fluffed its feathers often, and restlessly turned the eggs. Just prior to the hatching, the mated pair quietly exchanged care of the nest. A hole appeared in one egg, it started to rock, and there emerged a tiny wet chick. The chick was quickly hidden under the parent’s body and stayed there until it was almost dark, when a little head emerged from the parent’s back.
Video: Sandhill Crane Chick Antics
Sandhill crane eggs are laid up to 2 days apart and hatch in the same order. Although the second egg had a hole in it early this morning, the chick did not emerge until about 10:40 am. The chicks can see from when they are born and quickly become mobile; they can swim and walk within another day. Before they could even hold themselves up steadily,
| Sandhill cranes (Grus canadensis) are large, long-lived, charismatic, and intelligent birds. B.C.'s small coastal population of sandhill cranes (approximately 4000) are thought to belong to the subspecies rowani and to winter in California, Oregon and Washington. Little is known about their distribution and population status. Research conducted over the past three years has shown that sandhill cranes occur on islands of the central and north coasts of B.C. in upland bogs with nearby forest for nesting and roosting, and near estuarine and beach foraging habitat. this is an unusual complex of habitats for breeding sandhill cranes. |
The parents were seen unison calling throughout the day, a display of mated pairs of cranes that is thought to help to maintain pair bonding. The unison call of sandhill cranes can be used to distinguish between the sexes, as the female initiates the coordinated call and raises her beak about 45 degrees from horizontal while the male tips is bill skyward.
Around 4 pm, the father joined the mother and elder chick at the edge of the pool, not 3m from the nest islet. They stayed nearby for over an hour before wandering out of sight, but the younger chick was not yet strong enough to swim the distance. It disappeared behind the nest islet and we did not see it again.
That night the father roosted next to the mother while she brooded their chick on another islet in the pool. They disappeared together into the bog woodland the next morning and did not return to the nest pool again the next day. This is a typical pattern of nesting behaviour for sandhill cranes and their young. It is common for cranes to leave the nest as soon as the young are able, and for only one chick to survive to fledging age.
These cranes can be extremely wary of humans during the breeding season, making it difficult to observe them without affecting their behaviour. For this reason, remote cameras are ideal for studying nesting behaviour, such as parental sharing of incubation duties and chick-rearing, foraging behaviour in the nest bog, use of adjacent forest for cover, as well as possible predators.
The nest site in the clips below is located in a bog pool on an island not far from Bella Bella. The eggs were laid between April 27th and May 1st, with an incubation period of 30-32 days. Last year, the cranes nested in exactly in the same spot and raised one young to migration in September.
Stay tuned as we post more clips of this crane family!
For more information on this population of sandhill cranes please see http://rainforestsandhillcrane.wordpress.com.
Sandhill crane family...early morning June 4th
The cranes awake the dawn with unison calling, and soon after leave the nest pool with their chick to roam the bog and woods.
Sandhill crane chick antics
New sandhill crane hatchlings shelter in their mother's feathers.
Sandhill crane - second chick hatches
Sandhill crane parents unison calling and second egg hatching on the morning of June 3rd.
Sandhill crane - first chick hatches
This sandhill crane chick hatched late on June 2nd in the Great Bear Rainforest
Sandhill crane nest exchange short
A sandhill crane parent relieves its mate from incubating the eggs. The mate will fly off to forage on the beach nearby.
Sandhill crane nest exchange
A sandhill crane pair exchange places incubating their eggs with unison calling.
Nesting sandhill crane
Sandhill crane footage recorded with a remote camera in the Great Bear Rainforest
Sandhill crane
Rare video footage of unique coastal population of Sandhill cranes nesting on outer coastal bog forest in the Great Bear Rainforest.