These are not whooping cranes, by their markings, but for the purposes of this strip it’s close enough. I like this dynamic, where one character is painfully dim and the other is painfully aware, and I use it fairly often. But in this case it was central to the premise. Part of the reveal is that the goofy/dumb one (which I think of as the male, though I never say that) is the result of the narrowing of the gene pool of the species, and probably inbreeding. Plus, it just goes with this clip. At full resolution, the male has a look of bliss and the female has a more narrow-eyed, skeptical look.
The true stories behind your favorite clip art.
Is this actually a thing? Are they known for being incompetent and stepping on their own eggs all the time?
Is it odd that I assumed they were both male until reading the commentary? I’m not sure which I realized first: that egg-laying requires a female or that if cranes did foster eggs, they would be unlikely to choose an idiot for a mate now unnecessary beyond gathering food (I wouldn’t trust the idiot) or guarding the nest (I wouldn’t trust the idiot who thinks it’s a good idea to step on the newly-hatched cranes).