Natural History
Explore whooping crane biology, behavior, lifecycle, diet, and more!
Lifecycle
The life cycle of a whooping crane flows from one season to the next, with each aspect of their life determined by the habitats they occupy and the availability of food and water.
Click the hot spots on the image to learn more.
Spring
As spring beckons with rising temperatures and longer days, the wild Aransas-Wood Buffalo whoopers begin their annual migration north. Throughout their 2,500-mile journey, pairs, families, and individuals stop to refuel and rest in wetlands, river channels, prairie potholes, and saline basins.
Fall
Fall migration south begins after the chicks are big enough to fly. An adult’s pace slows down until their chick(s) build stamina and strength. This first migration is important as the chicks learn how to navigate the skies and landscapes, so they can one day make the journey on their own.
Summer
Early arrivals to Canadian boreal forests and aspen parklands of Wood Buffalo National Park begin in mid-April when breeding adults establish territories and begin building nests. Subadult whooping cranes will separate from their parents during their migration or shortly after arriving on the breeding grounds. Those that split off will spend the summer wandering the Canadian prairies. Migration usually ends by mid-May followed by a month-long incubation period. Chicks hatch and are cared for by their parents for the next four months, eating small invertebrates out of diatom ponds.
Winter
Diminishing food resources and unfavorable weather urge the whoopers south to wintering grounds along the Texas Gulf Coast. This is where the cranes will remain until spring arrives and they journey north again.
After nearly a month of parental incubation, a chick emerges from an avocado-sized egg with a coat of down. Within about two hours of breaking through the egg, a chick is able to stand up and walk around the nest. Two months later, down plumage is replaced with cinnamon-colored feathers, which are eventually replaced with white feathers. A juvenile will grow nearly an inch every day for five months until they reach a height of five feet.
Migration
Every year, whooping cranes embark on a harrowing 5,000-mile journey through the heart of North America. Their spring migration begins on the Texas Gulf Coast and ends in the boreal forests and wetlands of Canada; their fall migration follows the same path in reverse. Over five years, photographer and writer Mike Forsberg, working alongside researchers, documented the lives of this last wild population of whooping cranes. In the spring of 2022, he followed the birds on their migration north.
This six-minute narrative animation uses cutting-edge science and telemetry data to follow that migration through the lens of one family’s remarkable and poignant journey of 37 days and 2,500 miles up the heart of the continent, connecting critical wetland and grassland habitats along the way.
This video was produced by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, in partnership with Mike Forsberg, the members of the Whooping Crane Tracking Partnership in the US and Canada, and Platte Basin Timelapse. Animation created by 422 South.