Abstract
The West African Crowned Crane
(Balearica pavonina) is one of
Africa's most photographed birds. It is
a large bird standing nearly four feet
tall. Their height, of course, comes
from their long legs and long neck but
their exotic look is due to their unusual
head dress. When our young
Crowned Cranes first arrived, our
youngest daughter called them birds
with the tumbleweeds on their heads.
I think the crown feathers look more
like a dandelion puff but tumbleweed
or dandelion, they are eye catching.
The head has a large white cheek
patch which is soft skin, not feathered.
An orange-tipped black wattle is conspicuous
under the lower beak and
becomes somewhat inflated when the
birds vocalize. With an orange spot
above the white cheek patch and with
a velvet soft black patch on the front
of their head, it is easy to understand
why these colorful birds are so often
photographed.
Crowned Cranes spend most of their
time on the ground grazing on grasses
and hunting small mammals, reptiles
and insects.
Young Crowned Cranes look quite
different from the adults. They are
light brown with white spots all over
their bodies and the dandelion crown
feathers are much smaller. At the first
molt they change to the adult color of
powder gray with black, white and
brown wings. Although the youngsters
resemble adults, they do not
mature until their fourth year and
often do not breed until their tenth
year. In captivity some never breed.
Before our cranes arrived I talked to
as many people as possible about
flight size and breeding requirements
for these large birds. Pens a 100 feet
long and 50 feet wide were recommended
but we had to settle for a pen
45 feet long by 30 feet wide. When the
birds casually hopped over the seven
foot fence we covered the top of the
whole pen.
Our breeding plan was to move the
cranes into a larger flight during their
sixth year. This, we surmised, would
give them time to mature. Imagine my
surprise when they laid in their fourth
year. My first clue was when the male
stopped me at the door to the flight
and would not let me take another
step inward. Our nice, tame Crowned
Cranes became the most aggressive
birds imaginable.
Next there appeared a light blue egg
that was in their food tray and broken.
WOW! Even though the egg was broken,
at least we were on the right track
although ahead of schedule. As
Crowned Crane clutches usually contain
three eggs, I was hopeful they
would lay another egg or two.
My wife suggested that the egg was
broken because the birds did not have
a proper nest. I was told that the
cranes prefer a nest of sticks and grass
so I gave them a large amount of hay.
They dragged the hay all over the
flight but didn't make a nest of it. Then
I made a circle of wire three feet tall
and filled it with sticks and hay. This
worked because the wire wall kept
the nest together.
Three days after the first egg was
laid a second one was deposited in
the new nest. Worried that it also
might be broken, I considered taking
the egg for incubation. Once again the
male Crowned Crane changed my
plans. He allowed no one to enter the
flight. OK - plan B - fine - you're
on your own! Three days later the
third egg was laid. Nothing changedplan
B was still in effect.
It was most interesting to watch the
parents go about the business of
brooding their eggs. Both male and
female incubate them. During the hot
summer days one or both birds would
spread their wings to shade the eggs.
On June 5th 1992, about 29 days after
the first egg was laid, out hatched a
bouncing baby crane. The next egg
hatched shortly after.
At this time we didn't know if the
parents took food to the young or
what. I did know that baby cranes like
to eat meal worms so we added the
worms to the regular diet of chicken
lay pellets, dog kibble, pigeon grains
and game bird flight conditioner.
About 18 hours after the eggs hatched,
the hen answered my question about
feeding by walking off the nest followed
by both babies. They followed
like chicks do a mother hen and
pecked at everything in the flight.
Since this flight was not intended for
young cranes, there were many hazards
that could be dangerous to baby
birds. The babies would walk from
one hazard to another much to the
vocal concern of the parents. Clearly
the young cranes would not survive in
this flight so I decided to catch them
for hand raising. My wife refused to
face the aggressive male so I served as
a distraction. Actually, it was easier
than we thought. We just waited near
the gate and scooped up the babies as
they walked by.
We took the babies in and made a
great effort to raise them although
cranes are very difficult to hand feed.
The parents are constantly encouraging
them to feed, showing them a variety
of things to feed on. Sadly, we
were not able to keep the babies interested
in eating and we lost them both.
One nice thing about birds is that
they pass no judgement on their keepers
and they do not hold a gmdge for
long. We will be better prepared this
coming breeding season.