The Grey crowned crane (灰冕鹤) is a bird in the crane family, Gruidae. It’s found in eastern and Southern Africa, and also is the Uganda national’s emblem.

Saw this bird few times in Singapore Bird Park, it always stand calming and elegantly, didn’t manage to see how it fly. Very surprise to see it in the wild, especially at the Seletar Aerospace park which nearby my house.

This is definitely not a migratory bird and not a resident bird in Singapore. Did some research and found that it’s actually released by a pet farm few years ago and it’s a pair, the other one might be dead and left one alone. It usually stay around the Seletar area and the aerospace park is it’s favourite place to rest and hunt for food.

The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species, this species is categorised as “ENDANGERED” level, worldwide left around 17,000 – 22,000 mature individual according to the 2016 report. So sad to learn about this!

Environmental conservation is definitely what we all should be taking immediate attention and actions with.

Happy to observe this bird and manage to see how it fly so beautifully with it’s large wingspan.

My Gears:

• Olympus E-M1 Mark III
• Olympus M.Zuiko 100-400mm f/5.0-6.3
• Olympus EE-1 Dot Sight

Enjoy the photos! 🙂