Scientific name: Grus grus (Linnaeus, 1758)
Bird group: Cranes and Bustards
Field characters. 110-120 cm. A tall, graceful, Heron-like bird with mainly uniform lead-grey plumage and a white band on each side of head and neck, contrasting with grey-black chin, throat, and upper neck. Elongated secondaries form conspicuous cloak of loose feathers falling over tail; primaries black. At close distance red patch visible on crown. Bill relatively shorter than in herons and storks. Juvenile with brown head and neck; upperparts darker, more brown than in adult. Flies with head and neck extended, with regular, slow, but powerful wing-beats, alternated with long glides and soaring; gait is a stalking walk.
Voice. A loud, trumpeting "krooh".
Distribution. Fairly common summer visitor in Fenno-Scandia and eastern Europe, elsewhere more scarce.
Habitat. In the breeding season, frequents treeless moorlands, bogs, areas of dwarf heath, swampy areas, and reedy wetlands. Outside the breeding season, occurs in open country, such as marshes, lagoons, dry grasslands, cultivated lands.
Food. Taken from the ground, shallow water, or from vegetation while walking, mainly plant material such as roots, rhizomes, tubers, stems, leaves, fruits, and seeds; also invertebrates (insects, snails, annelids) and vertebrates (lizards, snakes, rodents).