The International Crane Foundation

In a blog post last summer, I mentioned that Terry and I intended to return to Baraboo to see the International Crane Foundation. My friend Diane, an avid birder, emailed to suggest that we meet there for my birthday this year.

And it came to pass that we planned to both arrive at noon, have a picnic, and go on the 1:00 tour. I invited Jane and Jan to come along. Jan was the only one of us who had been before. In the planning stages, because the trip was in early June, I envisioned a pleasant 73° day, not the 90° scorcher that it turned out to be. 

The International Crane Foundation was smaller than I imagined. 

Sculpture at the entrance

We parked in the shade near some picnic tables. We arrived before Diane and Tom, although they were not far behind.

We had a nice picnic in the shade. Jane had gotten a little crazy with her shopping and brought cheese, sausage, crackers, Cheetos, cherries, grapes, and Cracker Jacks. I made chocolate chip cookies. At 1:00 we assembled with a few other people in the theater for an introduction by our tour guide, a young woman named Secca, and a 13-minute film on cranes.

There are only 14 species of cranes, and the International Crane Foundation has examples of all of them. They have both a male and female for most of them, but not all are pair bonded.

The first area we came to was the “Spirit of Africa Exhibit.” There were four crane species here. At each enclosure, there was a shelter with benches. The female grey crowned crane can’t live in the wild because she imprinted on a human male. They have tried to introduce her to a male crane, but she attacked him. 

Grey crowned crane

She is a great exhibit bird, however, because she comes right up to the fence to see if she can attract a human male.  We had some excitement when someone’s hat blew up against the fence, and the crane attacked it.

Attacking a hat

The wattled crane hung out in the shade. These cranes are difficult to breed in captivity. In the wild, their nesting depends on annual flooding. If there is no flood in a given year, they don’t nest. I can imagine it is hard to recreate these conditions in captivity. They are slower to reproduce than most cranes, laying one egg per year rather than two.

Wattled crane (note wattle)

Next we saw a pair of black crowned cranes. 

Black-crowned crane

The blue cranes looked so smooth it was hard to believe they were covered in feathers. This is a young pair, about 5 years old.

Blue cranes

From Africa, we started around the Johnson Exhibit Pod. 

The brolga is the only crane that doesn’t have “crane” in the name. It is native to Australia, and “brolga” is the indigenous term for “crane.” Brolga crane would be redundant. 

Brolga

The Sarus crane is the tallest flying bird at 6 feet. 

Sarus crane--tallest flying bird. The bird in the back gives a better idea of height

The hooded crane is secretive about its nesting sites. The female of this pair was nesting, but no one had examined the egg yet to see if it was fertile.

Hooded crane

The most numerous crane in the world is the sandhill crane. Their population size is estimated at 650,000. There are six recognized subspecies of sandhill cranes. The sandhill cranes we saw were from a Florida subspecies that is not migratory and is in decline because rising ocean levels from climate change are increasing the salinity of the wetlands.

Sandhill crane

There were no shade shelters around the Exhibit Pod. We took a break from that area to go to the whooping crane exhibit. It felt good to sit down out of the sun. At one point, there was one population of 16 whooping cranes left in existence. Secca told us how the captive breeding started with egg collection. She showed us the puppet that was used to feed the chicks so they would not imprint on humans. 

Secca demonstrates the whooping crane puppet

There are now 600 whooping cranes, but the populations are not yet self sustaining.

As Secca talked, the female came down and walked through the water for us.

Whooping crane walking

Stretching her wings

Artsy-fartsy picture with reflection

The male spent the whole time on a nest.

Male whooping crane on the nest. Both parents take turns incubating the eggs

The Eurasian cranes are to the rest of the world what the sandhill cranes are to North American, being widespread and numerous. We heard their calls, which sounded similar to the sandhills. There is considerable variation among crane species in the length and coiling of the trachea, and this is what makes the difference in their vocalizations.

Eurasian cranes

The Siberian cranes are critically endangered, with less than 3000 individuals. They migrate 3000 miles twice a year. The trouble is that many of the stopping over places on their long flights have been drained. The Foundation is working to try to identify and restore these areas. While we were there, the cranes threw back their heads and called. It was quite a display.

Siberian cranes

The black-necked cranes migrate from Tibet to Bhutan. Their movement is from high to low elevation. Their return to the valleys of Bhutan is celebrated by local peoples who believe that the cranes bless the field for the coming year.

Black-necked crane

I noticed that many of the cranes ran to the fence as soon as we assembled there. My assumption that this was because they were tame was incorrect. Secca explained that they are being territorial and are racing out to defend their turf. This was particularly apparent for the White-napped crane. The female was nesting, and the male was so aggressive toward visitors that a special net had to be put up to keep it from hurting himself. 

White-napped crane--Stay Back!

Neither the Demoiselle cranes (the smallest of the cranes) of central Eurasia nor the red-crowned crane of Russia were out. I lingered long enough to hear that the Demoiselle crane crosses the Himalayas in its migration and has extra hemoglobin in its blood to make this high altitude flight possible.
I couldn’t stand the heat anymore and returned to the gift shop. I bought myself a birthday present.

My birthday present

We took a group picture in the picnic area.

Jane, Tom, Diane, Jan, Terry, and me

We went to Jose’s Authentic Mexican Restaurant when we were done looking at cranes.We had a fine meal, a pitcher of margaritas, and tall glasses of ice water.

And then we drove home. It was a very fun birthday.