Life habits of Red-crowned Crane

Red-crowned crane is one of the cranes. It is a large wading bird with a length of 120cm to 160cm. The neck and feet are long, the whole body is mostly white, bright red on the top of the head, black on the throat and neck, white on the ears to the pillow, black on the feet, black on the neck, tail and feet, red on the top of the head, the rest are all white; when flying, only secondary and tertiary feathers as well as neck and feet are black, the rest are all white, the features are extremely obvious and easy to identify. The chicks have brown head and neck, white feathers and chestnut color. Often work in pairs or in small groups. In migration season and winter, large groups are often formed by several or dozens of family groups. Sometimes there are as many as 40, 50, or even more than 100 in a cluster. However, the activities are still scattered into small groups or family groups in a certain area. At night, it mostly lives on the shoals or Reed ponds surrounded by water, and mainly feeds on fish, shrimp, aquatic insects, molluscs, tadpoles, sand silkworms, clams, snails and stems, leaves, tubers, bulbs and fruits of aquatic plants. Distributed in northeast China, eastern Mongolia, the east bank of the Wusuli River in Russia, North Korea, South Korea and Hokkaido, Japan.

Shape characteristics of Red-crowned Crane

The red-crowned crane is about 160 centimeters long, 240 centimeters in wingspan and weighs about 10 kilograms. The whole body is pure white, the top of the head is naked and scarlet, the forehead and eyes are slightly black, the ear feathers behind the eyes are pillow white, cheeks, throat and neck are black; the secondary feathers and tertiary feathers are black, the tertiary feathers are long and curved, arched, covering the tail, so the tail is black when standing, in fact, the tertiary feathers, while the tail, primary feathers and the whole body feathers are all white, which are very obvious when flying. The mouth is long, greenish gray, the neck and legs are also very long, the long and curved flying feathers in the middle of the two wings are black, and the whole feather is covered in the tail when standing, which is often mistaken for a black tail feather. The males and females are similar.

The iris is brown, the mouth is grayish green and the tip is yellow. The exposed part of the shin and the tarsus and toe are grayish black and the claws are gray.

The nestling is covered with yellowish-brown downy feathers, the back is light, the abdomen is dark, the shoulders are milky white, the mouth and legs are fleshy red, the body feathers gradually become white after 3 ~ 4 months, and the exposed part of the top of the head does not appear red until 10 months later.

The skeleton of the red-crowned crane is hollow, which is seven times stronger than that of the human skeleton, and it is often arranged in an ingenious wedge during migration, so that the individuals behind can make use of the air flow generated by the individual in front of them in turn. Thus, it can fly fast, labor-saving and long-lasting, with a speed of about 40 kilometers per hour, an altitude of more than 5400 meters, and the ability to fly and sing at the same time.

Habits of red-crowned cranes

Often work in pairs or in small groups. In migration season and winter, large groups are often formed by several or dozens of family groups. Sometimes there are as many as 40, 50, or even more than 100 in a cluster. However, the activities are still scattered into small groups or family groups in a certain area. At night, they often live on the shoals or Reed ponds surrounded by water, and they are still scattered according to their families, and they are very close to each other when it is especially cold. Foraging sites and night habitats are generally relatively fixed, and usually after dawn, various ethnic groups fly to the foraging grounds one after another to look for food, still keeping a certain distance from each other. At noon, they mostly concentrate on the beach to rest and keep tweeting. At night, they fly back to the night habitat for the night or stay in the foraging ground for the night. Often stand on one leg at rest, with your head turned back and inserted between your back and feathers. No matter when foraging or resting, an adult bird is often on special alert, constantly looking up and looking around, and when it is in danger, it makes a 'ko-lo-lo-'' call, with its neck straight up and leaning toward the sky. When danger is approaching, soar into the air. When flying, the head and feet are straight back and forth, and the wings move slowly, arranged in the shape of 'one' or'V'. Red-crowned crane adults molt twice a year, with summer feathers in spring and winter feathers in autumn, which are completely molting and will temporarily lose their ability to fly.

The migration of red-crowned cranes

Red-crowned cranes inhabit open plains, swamps, lakes, grasslands, seaside beaches, reeds, swamps and riparian marshes, and sometimes appear in farmland and arable land, especially in migration season and winter.

Spring leaves the overwintering ground and moves to the breeding ground at the end of February and the beginning of March, and passes through Beidaihe in China from the middle of March to the end of March. The time to arrive at the northeast breeding ground is from the beginning of April to the middle of April, the autumn starts to leave the breeding ground at the end of September and the beginning of October to migrate southward, and the time to move through Beidaihe is from mid-October to mid-November, and a large number of them are in early November. The leading time to reach the overwintering ground in Yancheng, Jiangsu Province is from October 28 to October 29, and a large number of them arrive in late November. It often migrates in small groups, and the largest group can reach 40 to 50. When you move, it becomes a'V', a zigzag team.