Grus rubicunda
Silhouette: Mathieu Pélissié · PhyloPic
In 3 days ~60% in a week ~90%
The brolga (Antigone rubicunda), formerly known as the native companion, is a bird in the crane family. It has also been given the name Australian crane, a term coined in 1865 by well-known ornithologist John Gould in his Birds of Australia.
The brolga is a common, gregarious wetland bird species of tropical and south-eastern Australia and New Guinea. It is a tall, upright bird with a small head, long beak, slender neck, and long legs. Its plumage is mainly grey, with black wing tips, and it has an orange-red band on its head. The brolga's courting dance is similar to that of other cranes. The nest is built of wetland vegetation, either on an elevated piece of land or floating on shallow water in marshland, and usually two eggs are laid. Incubation takes 32 days, and the newly hatched young are precocial. The adult diet is omnivorous and includes plant matter, invertebrates, and small vertebrates.
Although the bird is not considered endangered over the majority of its range, populations are showing some decline, especially in southern Australia, and local action plans are being undertaken in some areas. It has featured on the Queensland coat of arms since 1977 and was formally declared as the bird emblem of the state in 1986. Wikipedia →
Recording1:00
Australia · 2025
© bkcw8 · iNaturalist · CC BY-NC 4.0
Recording0:06
Australia · 2021
© jessica_laura · iNaturalist · CC BY-NC 4.0
Recording0:25
Australia · 2020
© draaron · iNaturalist · CC BY-NC 4.0
| # | Park | Country | Daily sighting probability |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Kakadu National Park | 🇦🇺 Australia |
More parks will be added in future updates.
| # | Zoo / Centre | Country | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Australia Zoo | 🇦🇺 Australia | |
| 2 | Walsrode World Bird Park | 🇩🇪 Germany | |
| 3 | International Crane Foundation | 🇺🇸 United States | |
| 4 | Healesville Sanctuary | 🇦🇺 Australia | |
| 5 | Taronga Zoo | 🇦🇺 Australia | |
| 6 | Perth Zoo | 🇦🇺 Australia | |
| 7 | Auckland Zoo | 🇳🇿 New Zealand | |
| 8 | London Zoo | 🇬🇧 United Kingdom | |
| 9 | Gorge Wildlife Park | 🇦🇺 Australia | |
| 10 | Birdland Park and Gardens | 🇬🇧 United Kingdom | |
| 11 | Featherdale Sydney Wildlife Park | 🇦🇺 Australia | |
| 12 | Brooklands Zoo | 🇳🇿 New Zealand | |
| 13 | The Lair | 🇦🇺 Australia | |
| 14 | Wildlife Habitat Port Douglas | 🇦🇺 Australia |
Possible
About 30% of wildlife watchers report a Brolga sighting in Kakadu National Park on a given day, based on 443 verified sightings from GBIF citizen-science data from 2019 to 2026. It is the 55th most-seen of the 186 birds we can rate there. Over three days the chance rises to about 60%, and over a week to about 90%, if each day is a fresh chance.
November
In that month about 40% of wildlife watchers report a Brolga in Kakadu National Park on a given day, against about 10% in April and December, the lowest months. February has too few records to rate.
Between 9 am and noon
Across all the parks we cover, that three-hour window holds the most Brolga sightings with a recorded time, and nearly all of them come between 6 am and 6 pm: it is a daytime animal.
Only Kakadu National Park, in our data
Kakadu National Park is the only park on Wallace's Line with enough records to rate Brolga sightings: about 30% of wildlife watchers there report one on a given day.
GBIF citizen-science records
It is estimated from how often the Brolga is recorded against all the birds logged in Kakadu National Park (443 verified sightings from 2019 to 2026), calibrated against known sighting rates. Figures are rounded to the nearest 10% because citizen-science data supports honest approximations, not decimals, and months with records from fewer than five people show "—". How it works.
