Adults are large cranes with grey bodies and wings and red heads and necks. They are usually seen in pairs or family groups.
Adults have grey bodies and wings, a bare red head and neck, a white crown, and black flight feathers. Juveniles have buff-colored feathers on the head.
During breeding, pairs perform courtship dances with calls, leaps, and wing displays. They nest in marshes and flooded fields.
It builds a large nest in a wet marsh or paddy field and may reuse it in later years. It lays 1–2 eggs, incubated by both parents for about 27–35 days.
In the wild it eats seeds, grain, aquatic plants, and insects, as well as frogs, lizards, fish, water snakes, and other birds’ eggs.
The long, dark bill is pointed, and the legs are pale red. Juveniles have darker gray body feathers than adults.
An extinction-risk assessment has not been added yet.