Crack! Crack!

In Buriram, Thailand, a tiny, fuzzy-headed sarus crane hatches from its shell. The chubby chick has a tiny name: Rice. People all over Thailand are paying attention to the bird. No other sarus crane has hatched in the wild in Thailand in 50 years!

Rice may look little now, but one day the tiny bird will grow much bigger than you are. At six feet, sarus cranes are the tallest flying birds in the world. They have gone extinct in Thailand. Scientists in Thailand borrowed a few sarus cranes from Cambodia. Over the past five years, the scientists have hatched the cranes in incubators. Then they have released the birds in Buriram, a place with many rice farms.

Sarus cranes disappeared from Thailand in the 1960s when farms took over their habitat. Pesticides killed the snakes and crabs the birds eat. People hunted the cranes for their bright feathers. But thanks to the scientists’ work, the birds fly over Thailand once again. Every morning at dawn, they sing a song with two notes in loud, squeaky voices. It’s as if they are telling the farmers, “We’re here! We’re here!”

The Thai farmers don’t need a reminder. They have worked very hard to make a safe place for the cranes to live. They stopped using pesticides on their fields. They parked their noisy tractors. They hand-harvested acres of crops. In the places the birds built nests, the farmers left big swaths of crops unharvested. But they have gotten a reward for their work. Their pesticide-free rice gets a good price at the market.

So far, 42 of the cranes released in the wild have survived. But none of them have successfully hatched a baby bird in the wild—until now. Happy birthday, baby Rice!