Black-Crowned Crane (Balearica pavonina): International Crane Foundation

I recently had the opportunity to visit the International Crane Foundation in Baraboo, WI, and this is the first of a series of posts featuring cranes. The ICF has all of the species of cranes from around the world, so the black-crowned cranes were in good company.

The black crowned crane is found on the continent of Africa, and this is one of two species of crane that can perch in trees (the other one being the similar grey-crowned crane). Apparently it is also popular to keep these cranes domesticated at houses in Africa. This could explain why I saw this crane (I think it was this species and not the grey-crowned crane...think) respond to a man that walked up to where the bird was being kept. He called it by name and it came running out of a shelter towards him and was very responsive to the presence of this man. The best I could figure is that the man was local and had been coming to the bird's cage interacting with it for quite some time.

Unfortunately, most of my pictures of the cranes at the ICF were taken from behind a chain-linked fence with my iPhone, so the pictures aren't the greatest. You can read more about this crane here and here, and more about the International Crane Foundation here.

Black-Crowned Crane (Balearica pavonina): at the International Crane Foundation

Black-Crowned Crane (Balearica pavonina): at the International Crane Foundation.
The picture has a filter on it from Instagram.

Black-Crowned Crane (Balearica pavonina): at the International Crane Foundation