A villager in northern China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region discovered a big bird in his farmland, which turned out to be a red-crowned crane under first-class state protection.

Forest police said the bird may have become exhausted while on its migration journey. They plan to release it back into the wild once it fully recovers.

The crane is a large wading bird, known for a patch of red bare skin on the crown. Siberia and northeast China are two of its major habitats.

It's among the rarest cranes in the world.

(Cover image via VCG)

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