# Help me identify a wading bird **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [July 3, 2005, 2:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-identify-a-wading-bird/310892 "2005-07-03T02:38:47Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 5\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Polycarp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/82dd89/32.png) [@Polycarp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Polycarp)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2005, 6:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-identify-a-wading-bird/310892/21 "2005-07-03T18:56:57Z")
> [@picunurse](#): > > This is a long shot. Could they [juvenile whooping cranes](http://www.learner.org/jnorth/images/graphics/c/craneWCEP073.jpg) ? They are brown with black feather tips. and red on the head. The picture I linked to are older, I think, I found some others that were more uniformly brown, but I clicked the wrong button and disappeared my browser. :smack: Now I can’t remember which sites in my history they were. You go oogle on google. 🙂 > Wouldn’t that be a find! Oddly enough, there is a remote possibility you are dead right here. The sole flock of wild whooping cranes migrates from Aransas NWR, Texas to Wood Buffalo NP, Alberta, along a flight path that is significantly west of the Wisconsin morainelands, essentially the western Dakotas and adjacent eastern Montana at that latitude. However, [this site](http://www.fws.gov/midwest/whoopingcrane/) describes the new whooping crane reintroduction project which is supposed to introduce a second flock which would winter in Florida and **breed in Wisconsin**. I’d rejected looking up the whoopers because I knew Wisconsin was too far east for their migratory flight; I didn’t know about the introduction project until I looked up what the migration area for the wild flock was. So **QtM** , you may have hit the jackpot: a sighting of a wild whooping crane! My hunch, though, is that it was a sandhill. ---
**Author:** ![Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/qadgop_the_mercotan/32/83_2.png) [@Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qadgop_the_Mercotan)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2005, 7:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-identify-a-wading-bird/310892/22 "2005-07-03T19:12:42Z")
Well, it did look a bit like this bird: [http://www.tgrsolution.net/zoo/birds1/pictures/bird0004.jpg](http://www.tgrsolution.net/zoo/birds1/pictures/bird0004.jpg) Which is advertised as a whooping crane on its website. But frankly I bet it was a sandhill. As much as I’d like to be able to claim that I saw a whooping crane. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2005, 7:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-identify-a-wading-bird/310892/23 "2005-07-03T19:28:40Z")
[Here’s more](http://www.bringbackthecranes.org/media/2005/nr-040805.htm) on the new Wisconsin flock of Whooping Cranes, some of which apparently use the Horicon Wildlife Refuge, close to **Qadgop’s** sighting. However, although juvenile Whoopers do have partly cinnamon plumage, by this time of year they probably will have changed to be mostly white, making them a less likely possibility. > [@Qadgop](#): > > But frankly I bet it was a sandhill. As much as I’d like to be able to claim that I saw a whooping crane. Maybe you should pop on over to Horicon. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![picunurse](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/7bcc69/32.png) [@picunurse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/picunurse)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2005, 11:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-identify-a-wading-bird/310892/24 "2005-07-03T23:22:53Z")
> [@Colibri](#): > > [Here’s more](http://www.bringbackthecranes.org/media/2005/nr-040805.htm) on the new Wisconsin flock of Whooping Cranes, some of which apparently use the Horicon Wildlife Refuge, close to **Qadgop’s** sighting. > > However, although juvenile Whoopers do have partly cinnamon plumage, by this time of year they probably will have changed to be mostly white, making them a less likely possibility. > > Maybe you should pop on over to Horicon. 🙂 The sites I found, said that the juveniles stay brownish for a year. Are you thinking, last year’s babies are already white, but this year’s aren’t big enough to be what **Qadgop** discribed? I’m not disagreeing, since I know a little less than nothing about them. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2005, 11:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-identify-a-wading-bird/310892/25 "2005-07-03T23:33:29Z")
> [@picunurse](#): > > The sites I found, said that the juveniles stay brownish for a year. Are you thinking, last year’s babies are already white, but this year’s aren’t big enough to be what **Qadgop** discribed? > I’m not disagreeing, since I know a little less than nothing about them. 🙂 The sites I checked say that the juveniles gradually become white over their first winter, so I would expect them to be pretty white by now. I wouldn’t think this year’s young would have left the nesting area so soon, and if they had they would almost certainly be together with their parents. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-identify-a-wading-bird/310892.md?page=1)