This Sandhill Crane Couple Adopted a Baby Goose

The elegant birds are raising a gosling as well their own colt this year in a Michigan park.

Update 7/15:听Sadly,听the young Canada Goose was found dead last week, photographer Jocelyn Anderson .听While this is not the ending we hoped for,鈥澨鼳nderson wrote,this family brought smiles to many and captured hearts with its unconditional love.鈥浓赌

As a wildlife photographer, Jocelyn Anderson has observed some incredible animal behavior. But the dynamics of a bird family she last week was unlike anything she鈥檇 ever seen before. Following a tip from the group, she tracked down a Sandhill Crane nest in Kensington Metropark in Milford. Anderson found the mother standing over a tottering crane chick, or colt. Nearby the father was digging up worms, while the duo鈥檚 other young charge scuttled about. It would have been an unremarkable, if lovely scene鈥攅xcept that the second chick was a Canada Goose. The crane parents have apparently adopted the gosling.

鈥淭he Sandhill Crane colt is fuzzy and gangly and the gosling is just so round and chubby,鈥 she says. 鈥淭hey look so different and the parents treat them exactly the same.鈥

It鈥檚 not unusual in the bird world for members of one species to raise the young of another. Cuckoos, for instance, purposefully听 in the nests of other, unsuspecting birds, which care for the young as their own. Another such case of brood parasitism, in which the biological parents offload their responsibilities for rearing their young, is that blew up online this year.

Sandhill Cranes, however,听aren鈥檛 known to be tricked into nurturing the offspring of other species, though there are reports of them chicks, which are close relatives. The situation in Kensington Metropark marks the first time Sandhill Cranes have been documented caring for the young of a bird from another genus, says Geoff LeBaron, director of听探花精选's Christmas Bird Count. Yet while this fostering situation is new to the record books, that doesn鈥檛 mean it has never happened before. LeBaron explains that because cranes are 鈥渃ryptic鈥 and 鈥渟ecretive鈥 during their nesting season, such behavior might have simply gone unnoticed.

Nobody knows for certain how the mixed family came to be. It鈥檚 possible Canada Geese nested near the cranes, and the gosling somehow made its way to its neighbors鈥 abode, where it was welcomed, says LeBaron. The theory among members of the Facebook group that tipped off Anderson is that a听goose听abandoned its听nest with an egg inside; then the cranes moved into the vacant spot, laid their own egg, and nurtured both of the chicks that hatched.

Sandhill Cranes raise one to two chicks per year, so having an extra mouth to feed isn鈥檛 out of the ordinary. What鈥檚 more, the parents seem to be feeding the young birds the same diet of worms and grubs鈥攁 fine menu for a goose, which typically eats an array of insects and plants. 听听听

While a gosling and colt might look nothing alike, the ways in which their parents care for them, both in the nest and after they fledge, are very similar, LeBaron says. 鈥淐ranes will migrate in family groups. So will geese,鈥 he says. 鈥淚t鈥檚 possible that this goose will end up flying south with cranes in the fall.鈥

If that happens, Anderson, who continues to keep tabs on the unlikely quartet, might photograph the scene: A portrait of an unusual family in flight, a short, plump goose winging it alongside its lanky adopted kin.