Quick answer
Key facts about sandhill crane — size, diet, habitat, and conservation in one place.
Dance displays
Leaping, bowing, and wing-spreading reinforce pair bonds and establish territory. Juveniles practice dancing long before breeding.
Platte River staging
Nebraska's Platte River hosts 500,000+ cranes each March feeding on waste corn before flying to Arctic nesting grounds — a bucket-list wildlife spectacle.
Trumpeting calls
Coiled trachea amplifies rattling calls audible kilometres across open marsh — contact between pairs and flocks during migration.
Subspecies range
Greater sandhill cranes breed in northern US and Canada; lesser cranes nest in Arctic tundra. Mississippi and Cuban populations are isolated and rare.