Common Crane

The common crane is slate-grey overall, 100 to 130cm long with a wingspan of 180 to 240cm and a weight of 3 to 6.1kg. The forehead and lores are blackish with a bare red crown and a white streak running from behind the eye to the upper back. The primaries, tail tip and edges of the upper tail coverts are black, and the greater coverts droop into plumes (Wikipedia, general species account).

It has a loud, piercing trumpeting call heard from a long way off, given in flight and display. It breeds in Europe and across the Palearctic to Siberia, with the largest populations in Russia, Finland and Sweden. Every two years before migration, adults moult completely and are flightless for six weeks. The sources opened do not describe it in Bhutan.