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It’s hard to miss a five-foot-tall bird with bright white plumage.
When Calgary birder Jonah O’Brien heard a whooping crane had been seen along a rural road about an hour northeast of the city Tuesday morning, he was quick to make his way there.
“It’s really cool,” said O’Brien, who has documented more than 270 bird species in his birding career.
It was his first time seeing a whooping crane, which is among the most coveted Canadian species for birdwatchers to find.
Birdwatchers keen on finding whooping cranes in Canada typically have to go to Saskatchewan to catch the birds during their fall migration, which is why this summertime sighting in Kneehill County was a welcome surprise for Calgary-area birders.
“You can’t miss it,” O’Brien said. “It’s a mega rarity.”
Standing at about five feet tall, the whooping crane is the tallest bird in North America. The bird can be distinguished from the more common sandhill crane by its size, all-white plumage, facial markings and black wingtips visible in flight.
The only natural migratory whooping crane flock left in the wild travels 4,000 kilometres from the birds’ winter home in Texas to their nesting grounds in the isolated wetlands of Wood Buffalo National Park every year.
At this time of year, the flock’s population of about 550 birds are spending their summer nearly 1,000 kilometres north of Calgary, in the park straddling the border with the Northwest Territories.
That makes this crane a “vagrant,” which in the birdwatching community refers to a bird that appears outside its normal range.
But this whooping crane being away from home isn’t all that’s got birdwatchers excited about this sighting.
Gavin McKinnon, co-author of A Field Guide to the Birds of Alberta, says the bird represents a “conservation success story.”
George Archibald, co-founder of the International Crane Foundation, once sat down with David Suzuki to talk about his work bringing the whooping crane back from the brink of extinction. 45 years later, Sarika Cullis-Suzuki visits Archibald to see the impact of his efforts. Watch Dances with Cranes now on CBC Gem and The Nature of Things YouTube channel.
Whooping crane populations in the wild plummeted to only about 20 individuals in the 1940s, with hunting and habitat loss bringing the species to the brink of extinction.
But thanks to strict legal protections, habitat preservation and intensive captive breeding programs, the wild whooping crane population has rebounded.
“The more individuals there are, the more likely it is for one to stray a little bit,” McKinnon said.
Wildfire-fighting crews managed to prevent flames from significantly damaging a critical habitat for endangered whooping cranes in Wood Buffalo National Park, according to Parks Canada. The birds were nearly extinct in the 1940s, but the flock has slowly rebuilt.
While they’ve experienced a well-documented population resurgence, whooping cranes are still considered endangered by the federal governments of Canada and the United States, as well as the Alberta government.
“Definitely respect the bird,” said McKinnon, who was among the first to find the whooping crane and expects others to go looking for it. “Don’t try and pressure it and get too close … If it appears stressed, back up, give it some space, and just encourage others to be respectful as well.”
McKinnon says this particular whooping crane is likely a young bird that isn’t breeding this year. He pointed to other out-of-the-ordinary sightings in recent years, like a bird that spent the summer west of Calgary in 2024 and another that was documented near Lethbridge in 2015.
“It’s just hanging out in southern Alberta for the summer, where it can find some food, and will probably continue on migration maybe next year,” McKinnon said. “Who knows? Maybe it’ll end up at Wood Buffalo, breeding.”
