All species › Cranes, rails and allies
Cranes, rails and allies | Gruiformes
Kraanvogelachtigen | Grullas y rálidos
Cranes, rails and finfoots look very unlike one another; they are placed together mainly on molecular data and on features of the skeleton. What they share is a life on the ground in marsh, reedbed, seasonal pan and wet grassland: long legs with long unwebbed toes that spread the weight over soft mud and floating vegetation, a small, high-set hind toe, broad rounded wings and a short tail, so that the legs project beyond the tail in flight. Many species moult all their flight feathers at once and are then flightless for some weeks. The nest is on the ground or on a platform in the vegetation; the young hatch downy and open-eyed, leave the nest within a few days and are still fed by both parents at first. In the semi-arid interior several species are tied to the rains: they appear within weeks on pans and vleis that lie dry for most of the year, and are gone again as soon as those dry out.
Families in this order
- Limpkin | Aramidae1 speciesThe Limpkin (Aramus guarauna) is the only member of this family, a bird of marshes, riverbanks and flooded forest from the south-eastern United States to Argentina. Within its order it is most closely related to the cranes, but in build it looks more like a large rail or an ibis: long legs, a long neck and a long, slightly decurved bill, with dark brown plumage finely streaked and spotted with white on the head, neck and back. The mandibles do not quite meet just behind the tip, and the tip is often slightly twisted, which helps to pull the animal out of an apple snail's shell without breaking it. Apple snails are the main food, supplemented by mussels, crayfish and other small animals. The call is a loud, wailing, repeated 'kree-ow', heard mainly at dusk and at night. The flight is stiff, with a jerky upstroke. In the region the Limpkin breeds in the Greater Antilles, mainly on Cuba, Jamaica and Hispaniola.
- Cranes | Gruidae1 speciesLarge birds with a long neck and long legs which, unlike herons, fly with the neck stretched out; the lengthened inner secondaries droop over the tail as a bustle, drawn out in some species into trailing, hair-fine plumes. In the species of the genus Grus the windpipe is elongated and coiled into the breastbone, which accounts for the far-carrying trumpeting note that a pair often delivers in duet; the crowned cranes lack that loop and instead give a blowing, honking call amplified by a red throat sac. The bill is straight and of moderate length: they feed while walking over grassland, vlei, arable land and flooded plain, digging up tubers and roots and taking seed, insects and small vertebrates as well. In most species the hind toe is small and set high, so they cannot perch in trees; only the crowned cranes have a long, low-set hind toe and roost in treetops. One to three eggs are laid on a heap of plant material in or beside shallow water, and the chick stays with its parents for the first months.
- Rails and crakes | Rallidae14 speciesThe body is flattened from side to side, so the bird can squeeze between dense reed and sedge; the toes are strikingly long, and lobed in the swimming species. The wings are short and rounded: over short distances they fly with a whirring beat and dangling legs, though many species migrate long distances by night. The short tail is flicked up as they walk, showing the often pale undertail, and the bill ranges from short and conical to long and slender according to the food taken. The nest is a cup of stems and leaves hidden above shallow water; clutches are large, and the black downy chicks follow their parents within a day and are fed bill to bill.