The color and exposure of the skin changes in response to various stimuli, and often accompanies other behavioral displays. When cranes are aggressive, they assume an upright posture with their body feathers sleeked, thighs protruding, and the head features expanded. They walk in a stilted manner that has been likened to the goose-step of parading soldiers. They will follow this threatening posture with a variety of flaps, ruffles, bows, false preenings, stomps, nasal snorts, and growls. If a crane takes to the air in this emotional state, it will fly with rigid flaps with narrow arcs, with its feet and neck arched upward.
Cranes also engage in a variety of more circumscribed threat gestures.
In the crouch threat, the crane bends its legs, lowers itself to the ground, folds its wings loosely against the ground and body, and places its head forward with the red patch prominent. In the ruffle threat, the crane raises the feathers of its neck, wings, and back, partially opens and lowers its wings, ruffles them alternately, and then lowers its bill to its lower breast or leg in a preening movement, often concluding this sequence with a low growl. In a charge, the crane points its neck and head straight down and lifts the feathers along its neck and back, holding this stance for several seconds. A submissive crane, by contrast, lowers its neck, elevates it body feathers, and diminishes the threatening display of its head features by lowering the feathers and reducing the size of its comb. In this state of accommodation, the crane walks loosely and warily.