Siberian Crane

The Siberian crane, or snow crane, is a fairly large crane, typically 4.9–8.6 kg and about 140 cm tall, 115–127 cm long with a wingspan of 210–260 cm. Adults are nearly all snowy white except for black primaries, alula and primary coverts, visible in flight. During the breeding season both sexes are often seen with mud streaking their feathers, perhaps smeared on deliberately as camouflage on the nest. Among cranes it makes the longest migrations (Wikipedia, general species account).

It has two breeding populations, in the Arctic tundra of western and eastern Russia. The eastern birds winter in China, while the western population winters in Iran and formerly in Bharatpur, India, with some birds once wintering south to Nagpur and east to Bihar; specimens wintering in India were found to have mainly aquatic plants in their stomachs. Numbers, especially in the west, fell drastically in the 20th century through hunting on migration routes and habitat degradation. SoIB 2023 lists it as a winter migrant to India that is now extirpated there (Wikipedia, general species account; SoIB 2023).