Abstract: The incubation period is a key stage for bird breeding. Comparative studies on the incubation period behaviors of Red-crowned Crane (Grus japonensis) parental birds at different breeding start times is helpful to reveal the different behavioral countermeasures, and survival and reproductive status in different phenological periods, which is a positive significance for crane conservation. From March to June 2023, a comparative study on the incubation period behavior at different breeding start times of parental birds was carried out in the Zhalong National Nature Reserve, Heilongjiang, China. 16 parental birds were divided to early incubation group (March, n=9) and late incubation group (April and May, n=7) two groups according to the start time of breeding. The incubation period behavior was approximately 33 days. Per parental birds was observed and compared by all occurrence sampling and instantaneous scan sampling methods. The results showed that the time for female and male parental birds to brooding eggs, resting, leave the nest, preening, wandering, cooling eggs, chirping to warning decreased successively and showed the same pattern in the early incubation group and the late incubation group. The proportion of female and male parent bird behavior times to the total day time were 49.04%, 46.22% (early) and 51.76%, 42.42% (late) for brooding eggs, 22.51%, 28.01% (early), and 22.66%, 26.92% (late) for resting, 20.16%, 18.99% (early), and 20.89%, 26.56% (late) for leaving the nest, and 8.29%, 6.78% (early), and 4.69%, 4.10% (late) for the other five behaviors, respectively. There were no significant differences (p>0.05) in times of brooding eggs, cooling eggs, chirping and resting between females and males, but there were significant differences (p<0.05) in times of leave the nest, wandering, preening and warning. Between the early incubation group and the late incubation group, there were no significant differences (p>0.05) in times of brooding eggs, cooling eggs and chirping, However, times of warning, leave the nest, wandering and preening in the late incubation group were significantly lower than those in the early incubation group (p<0.05). The resting number of female birds in the late incubation group was significantly lower than that in the early incubation group (p<0.05) and there was no significant difference compared to male birds (p>0.05). The male and female parental birds of Red-crowned Crane adapted to the phenological differences in different incubation periods by coordinating the countermeasures of each other’s survival behavior times and frequency. However, the average incubation task sharing pattern, the gender differences and the reproduction investment were not affected by the difference in incubation initiation time.