Where do cranes live?

Inhabits open plains, marshes, lakes, grasslands, seashore mudflats, reeds, and riparian marshes, and sometimes occurs in farmland and cultivated fields, especially during the migration season and in winter.

Distributed in China, Japan, Korea, North Korea, Mongolia, and the Russian Federation. Traveling bird: Taiwan Province of China. The Dandilion Crane breeds in the Russian Far East, the Heilongjiang and Ussuri River basins in China and Hokkaido in Japan, and winters in Japan and Korea.

The Whooping Crane requires clean and open wetland environments for its habitat and is the most sensitive indicator organism to changes in wetland environments. As a result of population growth, the crane's habitat is constantly being transformed into farmland or cities.

For example, the moon bubble in the western part of Jilin Province was once a breeding ground for cranes, but because of man-made dykes around the lake, the water level inside the dykes rose, the aquatic plant belt basically disappeared, and outside the dykes, the lakes dried up, reclaimed as farmland, and the cranes were extinct from then on.

Another example is the swampy area between Shaobo Lake and Gaoyou Lake in northern Jiangsu Province, which used to be the wintering place of the red-crowned cranes. Due to the increasing number of people fishing, herding and hunting in the area every year, the number of red-crowned cranes has decreased drastically due to the increase of man-made disturbances, as well as the picking of eggs and poaching.

Life Habits:

1. Activities

Often in pairs or in family groups and small flocks. During the migration season and winter, larger groups are often formed by several or dozens of family groups. Sometimes the clusters are as many as 40-50 or even more than 100. However, the activities are still scattered into small groups or family groups in a certain area. At night, they roost in the shallows surrounded by water or on the edge of the reed ponds, and they still roost in scattered groups according to their family groups, but when the day is particularly cold, they are very close together.

Foraging and night roosting sites are generally more fixed, usually after dawn, each family group flies to the foraging site one after another to forage, and still maintain a certain distance from each other. At midday, most of them concentrate on resting at the beach and chirp continuously. In the evening, they flew back to their night roosts or stayed at their foraging grounds for the night. When resting, it often stands on one leg, with its head turned back between its back feathers.

Whether foraging or resting, there is often one adult bird that is particularly alert, constantly looking up and out, and when it finds danger, it makes a 'ko-lo-lo-lo-' call, and when it does so, its head and neck are straightened upward and tilted toward the sky. When danger is imminent, it will take to the air and fly. When flying, the head and feet straight back and forth, two wings drumming slowly, in a 'one' or 'V' shape.

2. Migration

In spring, they leave their wintering grounds at the end of February and the beginning of March and move to their breeding grounds, passing through Beidaihe, China, from the middle of March to the end of March. It arrives at its northeastern breeding grounds in early to mid-April. In the fall, it begins to leave its breeding grounds in late September and early October and migrates south, passing through Beidaihe from mid-October to mid-November, with a large number of them in early November.

The earliest arrival at the wintering grounds in Yancheng, Jiangsu Province, was from October 28 to October 29, with large numbers arriving in late November. Often in small flocks, the largest flocks can reach 40-50. When migrating to fly into 'V', zigzag team.

3, Feathering

The adult cranes change their feathers twice a year, in the spring into summer feathers, and in the fall into winter feathers, which is a complete feathering, and they will temporarily lose their ability to fly.

4, song

The high-pitched, bright song of the red-crowned crane is related to its special vocal organs.

The pitch and frequency of dandilion cranes' calls vary greatly depending on gender, age, behavior, and environmental conditions. Generally the calls come in bunches or singly, not only when taking off and when flying in the air, but also when feeding and roosting on the ground. It can be heard almost every day and every hour of the day, all year round, but most frequently around dawn.

5, food

Food is very diverse, mainly fish, shrimp, aquatic insects, mollusks, tadpoles, sandworms, clams, nail snails, and aquatic plants, stems, leaves, tubers, bulbs and fruits and so on.

6, Crane Dance

Every year in late March and early April, when the cranes arrive at the breeding grounds soon after the pairing and occupation of the nesting area, males and females each other through the nesting area of the constant chirping to announce the possession of the field. Courtship is also accompanied by chirping, and often the male bird's beak is pointed upward, raising his head and neck to the sky, with his wings shrugged up, singing and making a loud and clear sound of "heh, heh, heh".

The females responded in a loud voice and then chirped, jumped and danced with each other. The dance is also very beautiful, or stretching their necks and raising their heads, or bending their knees and waist, or stepping in place, or jumping in the air, and sometimes picking up small stones or twigs and throwing them into the air.

Reference link: Baidu Encyclopedia Look - Danding Cranes