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Caption

  • A preserved blue crane standing on a plinth resembling real earth.
  • The profile of the head of a preserved blue crane.

Stanley crane

20th century

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Description

The Stanley crane, or blue crane, is the national bird of South Africa. They are seen as a symbol of peace and resolution.

RAMM’s Stanley crane is called Joey. In 1914, he was brought to England from South Africa. He was kept as a captive bird at the Royal Botanic Gardens in Kew, London. After his death in 1935, he was presented to RAMM in 1940 by the Assistant Director of Kew at the time. Why he was given to RAMM, we do not know.

During his time at Kew Gardens, Joey had an eventful life. He lost a toe in an accident with a lawn mower, protected storks from flocks of geese and even had a love affair with a demoiselle crane. He was beloved by the public, known as the Grand Old Man of the Gardens.

You can find out more about Joey’s life on RAMM’s collections site.

Visual description: A taxidermy Stanley crane. It is a large, one-metre-tall grey crane with a long neck, black-tipped feathers and a yellow beak. It is standing on a dark base made to resemble earth.

RAMM Treasures - Object 1 - Stanley Crane

Start RAMM's Treasures of the Museum trail by learning about the first object, the Stanley crane.

Treasures of the Museum: Stanley Crane

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Transcript

Holly Morgenroth: My name's Holly Morgenroth and I'm the Natural Sciences Curator here at RAMM. In our bird collection, we've got about 12,000 bird specimens, but, for me, there's one that really stands out. It's a Stanley crane and he's called Joey.

He came to us from Kew Gardens in London, where he'd lived for about 20 years. So he came to them in 1914 from South Africa, and in South Africa it's their national bird, and they're seen as a symbol of peace and of resolution.

Joey is on display at RAMM with 140 other birds in our birds gallery. He's one of the biggest specimens in there and if you look at him face on through the case, he's actually directly in front of one of our smallest birds, which is a bee hummingbird. So you can really see the difference in colour and size, and you see Joey's lovely little face looking out at you.

So he lived quite happily at Kew Gardens for many, many years. He was really popular with the public and he'd got quite a personality, so he was really popular with the press as well. So, unfortunately, one cold winter in 1935, it's thought that Joey was trying to cross a frozen pond, and actually the ice was too thin for him and he fell in. And unfortunately he was frozen in and that's how he died.

So, Joey is actually a really lovely piece of taxidermy. He's very, very well preserved and he's been mounted really expertly.

So the reason Joey is special for me is that whilst we know where most of the 12,000 birds we've got in the collection came from and when they came to us, we don't actually know a lot more about them. But we do know why Joey came to England and where he lived. He really did have a wonderful character and he was loved by the people of London. So it's so wonderful that he's still with us at RAMM.

Credits

Watch RAMM staff and volunteers tell us why they love each of the 16 objects, and hear the fascinating stories that make these items so special.

Additional Information

Dimensions
About 1 m
Accession Number
12/1940

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