RED-CROWNED (JAPANESE) CRANES: CHARACTERISTICS, BEHAVIOR, ART, CULTURE

RED-CROWNED CRANES

Red-crowned cranes

Red-crowned cranes are the national bird of China and the largest birds in Japan. They are very important to both countries. Declared "special natural monuments," they inhabit parts of China, Siberia, Korea and eastern Hokkaido. They are known in Japanese as “tancho” (“red mountain”) and in English as the Japanese crane and the red-crowned crane. Many places and families across Japan have the word “tsuru,” or crane, in their names. Sources: Jennifer Ackerman, National Geographic, January 2003, Tsuneo Hayashida, National Geographic, October 1983]

Red-crowned cranes are the second rarest crane in the world. They can be found at the Amur River basin in eastern Russia and in southeastern Asia, including China and Japan. They are a migratory species that spend their springs and summers in the wetlands of temperate East Asia and their winters in the salt and freshwater marshes of China, Japan and the Korean Peninsula. A non-migratory population lives year-round in Hokkaido, Japan's northernmost island. [Source: Victoria DeCarlo, Animal Diversity Web (ADW) /=]

Red-crowned cranes live in northern temperate areas with a climate similar to the northern U.S. and Europe. They can also be found in marshes and other wetlands as well as agricultural areas and nest and feed in marshes with deep water. This habitat preference is unusual for cranes; most of whom prefer shallow water. Red-crowned cranes only in areas with standing dead vegetation.

A large number of red-crowned cranes live in the Kushiro Mire, a 182-square-kilometer (70-square-mile) area of boreal marsh near the city of Kushiro in eastern Hokkaido. It is the crane’s main breeding area in Japan and where most of the cranes in Japan congregate in the winter. The marsh has been preserved in its natural state in part because its cool, foggy climate is not conducive to growing rice.

Good Websites and Sources: Bird Life International birdlife.org/datazone ; Red-Crowned Crane at the International Crane Foundation savingcranes.org ; White-Naped Crane savingcranes.org ; Kushiro Shitsugen National Park Government National Park Site National Parks of Japan ; Bird Guidebooks “Guide to the Birds of China” by John MacKinnon (Oxford University Press), “A field Guide to the Birds of Russia and Adjacent Territories” by V.E. Flint (Princeton University Press)and a “Birdwatchers's Guide to Japan” by Mark Brazil (Kodansha).

Japanese Cranes and Japanese Culture

Cranes are symbols of love, happiness, martial fidelity, good luck and longevity in east Asia. Regarded as sacred, they have been the subjects of many poems, myths and artworks and are common motifs on kimonos, scrolls, screens, porcelain, lacquerware, bronze mirrors and a popular brand of playing cards. Paper cranes are folded as a gesture of friendship and to remember the victim of the Hiroshima atom bomb explosion. Cranes also appear in Russian folk songs, ancient Egyptian tombs, Greek myths, Australian aboriginal dances, and prehistoric European cave art.

Red-crowned crane range: Green: Breeding; Yellow: Migratory passage; Red: Non-breeding

The 17th century Japanese poet Basho wrote the following haiku:
“Cool seascape with cranes
Wading long-legged in the pools
Amid the tideway dunes”.

Jennifer Ackerman wrote in National Geographic, “The Japanese have written the tancho into poems and folktales and myths. They have painted it and made statues and sculptures to it...From its habits they have drawn phrases and metaphors to describe their own behavior. They have imitated it and tried to dance as it dances. They have named streets and cities after it. They have folded it into tiny birds of paper and hung them carefully in colored festoons at temples and shrines...Most of all they. They have made I into an icon and put its image everywhere, so this extremely rare bird is, ironically, seen throughout Japan."

Joyce Denney of the Metropolitan Museum of Art wrote: In Chinese art: “Cranes were already linked to long life through their role as conveyences of the immortals; in addition, their white feathers could also bring to mind the white hair of the elderly and, when seen in pairs, could obliquely refer to an elderly couple. This association also held true for small birds with white-feathered heads, common in paintings given as birthday gifts to elderly couples. The physical property of length was also associated with long..Long-tailed birds and long ribbons were also connected with long life.\^/[Source: Joyce Denney, Department of Asian Art, Metropolitan Museum of Art metmuseum.org \^/]

Cranes

Cranes are the tallest and arguably the most elegant of all flying birds. More closely related to rails and bustards than herons, ibises and storks, they are known best for their unwavering faithfulness to mates, spectacular courtship displays, large size, long migrations and loud calls. Many species can reach a height of five feet within a year after they are born. Some of them have long life spans. One Siberian crane is known to have lived for 83 years.

There are 15 species of crane. They generally make their homes in grasslands and wetlands. Nine species of crane are endangered. Some are near extinction. Their numbers have been reduced by hunting and habitat loss. Captive breeding programs have been set up in several countries to increase their numbers. At some of these places, cranes are raised by humans in crane costumes and taught to fly over grass runways with the help of ultralight planes flown by men in crane costumes.

Crane pairs establish large breeding territories in wetlands and grasslands and zealously defend them. Intruders are warned off with a loud trumpeting. A pair builds a platform nest in shallow water. Typically two eggs are laid, with both sexes sharing incubation duties. After they hatch chicks remain with their parents until the next breeding season. In many cases only one chick survives. The low reproductive makes rebuilding decimated crane population a difficult task.

by Maruyama Ōkyo (Japan, 1733-1795)

Red-Crowned Crane Characteristics and Diet

The red-crowned crane is among the largest of the 15 crane species. It stands up to 1.6 meters (5.25 feet) and weighs up 10 kilograms (22 pounds). Males and females are virtually identical. Booth have distinctive red crowns and white and black markings on their wings and bodies. These cranes usually live for 30 years in the wild and can live for over sixty years in captivity.

Red-crowned cranes have a wingspan of 2.4 meters (7.87 feet). They are endothermic (use their metabolism to generate heat and regulate body temperature independent of the temperatures around them) and warm-blooded (homoiothermic, have a constant body temperature, usually higher than the temperature of their surroundings). Their average basal metabolic rate is 31.4 cubic centimeters of oxygen per gram per hour. [Source: Victoria DeCarlo, Animal Diversity Web (ADW) /=]

Red-crowned cranes have white bodies with black on the tips of their wings and necks. They are named because of the red circle on their heads, which is actually exposed skin. These cranes have very long, sharp and pointy beaks. This bill is a good defense and can be used like a spear to impale prey. The shape of the bill makes it easy for these birds to pick out and gather food. They can feed in deeper water than other cranes because of their walk and pecking technique. When preening they rub special oil that is secreted from a gland at the top of their tail onto their feathers to keep the feathers conditioned.

Red-crowned cranes are primarily omnivores (eat a variety of things, including plants and animals). Animal foods include amphibians, fish, insects small mammals, terrestrial non-insect arthropods. terrestrial worms, and aquatic worms. Among the plant foods they eat are leaves, seeds, grains, nuts and fruit. Japanese cranes mainly eat frogs, fish and insects but also includes aquatic invertebrates, other amphibians, rodents, reeds, grasses, heath berries, corn, and other plants. During winter months, they also feed on waste and grain in agricultural fields. In zoos they are fed crane pellets and 500 grams of silverside fish (per day), and occasionally insects. /=\

Red-Crowned Crane Behavior

Red-crowned cranes eating fish in Kushiro

Red-crowned cranes can fly and are motile (move around as opposed to being stationary), migratory (make seasonal movements between regions, such as between breeding and wintering grounds), social (associates with others of its species; forms social groups), communal and live in flocks. [Source: Victoria DeCarlo, Animal Diversity Web (ADW) /=]

The red-crowned cranes in northern Hokkaido live there all through the year and breed in the summer. In sub-zero temperatures the birds stay warm by standing on one leg and protecting their body underneath one wing. They can fly at speeds of 40mph and sometimes the play act by themselves with corn husks.

In the winter the cranes in Kushiro sleep standing up one-legged in streams — whose waters are much warmer than the air — for warmth and protection from predators. Members of a group tend to wake up and sleep at different intervals so there is always a “guard bird” on the alert for predators.

Red-Crowned Crane Senses, Communication and Dancing

Red-crowned cranes sense using vision, touch, sound and chemicals usually detected with smell. They communicate with vision and sound. The can issue a territorial call that can be heard for three kilometers (two miles) away. They also have a contact call that lets other birds know where they are. The chick's contact call is much louder and more strident than the adult's, this helps them to get attention in times of distress. [Source: Victoria DeCarlo, Animal Diversity Web (ADW) /=]

Red-crowned cranes are famous for their courtship dance, which consists of bowing, head bobbing and leaping in order to communicate with each other. The dance is very beautiful and strengthens the bond between male and female pairs. Mates reinforce their bond with “unison” calls. Their loud calls, which an be heard up to three kilometers away, are made by thrusting aire through the bird’s long, cooled trachea as if it were some kind of brass instrument, The Japanese expression “tsuri no hitoke” (“call of the crane”) means a voice of authority

Females sometimes start dancing and sometimes entire flocks dance for what appears to be the sheer fun of it. The leaping dance of red-crowned cranes can be both a courtship dance or a sign of aggression. The Ainu emulate this dance in a ritual to charm evil spirits. The cranes can also communicate aggression by inflating the red cap on their heads. /=\

Although they can be aggressive and fiercely territorial in the summer, tacho sometimes congregate in huge flock in the winter. Describing a gathering in Hokkaido Jennifer Ackerman wrote in National Geographic, “Some stalk the field or stand in pairs, lifting their bills to trumpet a shrill, rolling cry, a “unison” call that carries across fields. One flares its wings and arches its back in a dramatic threat display to relieve the tension of crowding. A swoop of six arriving on motionless wings from their roost site in a nearby river, drop lightly to the ground amidst the others and lower their heads to pluck the scattered corn.”

Red-Crowned Crane Mating, Reproduction and Offspring

by Ogata Kōrin (1658–1716)

Red-crowned cranes are monogamous (having one mate at a time) mate for life. They engage in seasonal breeding, in spring and summer months. The average number of eggs per season is two. The average time to hatching is 31 days. The eggs hatch at the same time, but often only one chick lives. The average fledging age is 70 days. On average males and females reach sexual or reproductive maturity at 2-3 years. [Source: Victoria DeCarlo, Animal Diversity Web (ADW) /=]

In the mating season, males do a ritual dance in which they bow and bob their heads and flap their wings, leap up and down with their wings outstretched and do various other gestures. \The dancing display is used in courtship and to communicate between other Japanese cranes. There is also a unison call given by the male and female before they start other dance elements.

Mating is brief. The male leans on the female's back and steadies himself by flapping his wings while the female keep from falling down by placing her beak in the snow. After mating is completed the male and female bow to each other. Mating takes place two or three times a day and continues well into the nesting season.

Nests are built on the ground and tended by both parents during the four- to- five-week incubation period. Parents take turns carrying for the young which are vulnerable to attacks from foxes, cows, large raptors and dogs. The female does more of the feeding while the male defends the chicks from predators. The chick learn to fly after about three months but remains with its parents for almost a year, after which time it has to fend for itself.

Endangered Red-Crowned Cranes

The red-crowned crane is the second rarest crane species after the whopping crane with fewer than 4,000 worldwide. In the 1920s before 10 cranes were found it was thought they had become extinct. A winter count in 2020 recorded more than 3,800 red-crowned cranes (adults and immatures), including about 1,900 in Japan, more than 1,600 in Korea and about 350 in China. On the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List they are listed as Endangered. In CITES (Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild) they are in Appendix I, which lists species that are the most endangered among CITES-listed animals and plants.[Source: Wikipedia, Victoria DeCarlo, Animal Diversity Web (ADW) /=]

Red-crowned cranes have been hurt by hunting, habitat loss, and deterioration of their breeding environment due to economic development, agricultural expansion, river canalizations, deforestation, and road building in wetlands in Hokkaido, which supported more than a quarter of the red-crowned crane population. The agricultural development of breeding and wintering grounds for the cranes is also a critical threat in China and other places that the cranes reside.

The amount of wetlands in Hokkaido declined from 200,000 hectares in the 1920s to 60,000 in the 2000s. Many meandering rivers where the birds lived were straightened and their banks were covered with concrete. In recent years there have been problems associated with tancho cranes encroaching on areas inhabited by humans. Some have disrupted traffic and been hit by cars; others eat crops for food. Some locals have complained about their presence. Dozens of cranes have been fatally struck by trains on the JR Senmo Line, which runs through Kushiro Marsh, where many cranes live. According to the Environment Ministry, a total of 30 such were reported between 2001 and 2011.

The birthrate of the Japanese cranes in Japan is starting to decline. Part of the problem may be lack of fertility due to inbreeding. Having the cranes concentrated in small area also makes them vulnerable to a contagious disease. Birds have been killed by flying into electric wires, being hit by cars and trains and swallowing pesticides after falling into slurry tanks.

Development around the wetlands in Hokkaido where the cranes live has caused the water levels to drop and parts of the marsh to dry up.The marshlands in Kushiro are deteriorating as groundwater levels have dropped and development has increased. In the past 60 years the marshland has decreased in size by 30 percent.

Comeback of Endangered Japanese Cranes

Up until the mid 1800s red-crowned cranes were found in abundance throughout Honshu and Hokkaido, with some of the birds migrating between the two inlands, wintering in Honshu and breeding in Hokkaido. Hunting and loss of habitat forced the birds out Honshu. The 10 survivors found in the 1920s were found the Kushiro Mire, roosting and feeding in small rivers within the marsh. In 1924 part of the marsh was designated a protected area. That helped them survive but just barely. In 1952 the population had only risen to 33 birds. In 1952, Hokkaido was struck by a wave of blizzards and severe cold. Local farmers began feeding the cranes corn and buckwheat to help them survive. The story goes that children in Tsurui found Japanese cranes crouching in a farmer’s field. Villagers thought that the birds looked and began feeding them corn, even though they had little food themselves.Every winter after that the farmers fed the cranes and their numbers began to grow.

Over the years the cranes have been carefully studied; captured and released; and tracked and observed. Efforts to raise them in captivity for release failed. In 1982, 1,000 cranes, with 300 of them in Japan, were counted. In 2005, the number of Japanese cranes counted in Hokkaido exceeded 1,000 for the first time. There are currently about 1,200 Japanese crane in Japan. Most of them in Kushiro wetlands. Another 1,400 or so live outside of Japan. The cranes in Korea and southern China migrate to northern China and Siberia. Those on Hokkaido stay on the island. In June 2008, a red-crowned crane was spotted in a rice field in Akita Prefecture. It was the first time a red-crowned crane has been seen on Honshu in more than a hundred years.

Today, while crane numbers continue to rise at a rate of between 5 to 7 percent a year, their habitat is rapidly shrinking. About 90 pairs nest in Kushiro Mire, which is probably the maximum the marsh can handle. The cranes are famously territorial and crowded them into a particular area reduces the likelihood that their chicks will survive, as adults search larger area for food and defend their territories, leaving nests vulnerable to predators such as foxes, eagles and crows.

Protecting Japanese Cranes

Measures implemented to protect red-crowned cranes have included international agreements and cooperative research on their has been done on their migratory patterns. Protected areas have also been established to safeguard the crane s' habitat and minimize disturbance. There has also been efforts to develop an umbrella international agreement for all cranes in east Asia. It is now illegal to hunt red-crowned cranes in all nations where they naturally occur. [Source: Wikipedia, Victoria DeCarlo, Animal Diversity Web (ADW) /=]

People have set up winter feeding stations, which help the cranes survive the winter months. Japan has marked its nearby utility lines to help reduce collisions and there are frequent surveys done on the breeding and wintering grounds.

Red-crowned cranes have lived in captivity for centuries and have been bred by humans since 1861. A few limited reintroduction efforts have been made to help bring the birds in captivity back to the wild and educational programs have been set up to focus on helping these cranes.

In 2013, the Daily Yomiuri reported: Hokkaido Railway Co. and the Environment Ministry have discussed measures to prevent accidents between trains and Japanese red-crowned cranes that included installing a device on trains that produces a sound the cranes dislike and requiring drivers to slow down near the cranes' habitats. [Source: Daily Yomiuri, February 18, 2013]

Japanese Cranes in Hokkaido

A few cranes that winter in Hokkaido have begun breeding in the Russian-controlled Kurile islands north of Hokkaido. Japanese and Russian researchers and officials have looked into the idea of introducing cranes to open marshes of Sakhalin Island, further north still but tense relations between Russia and Japan over the Kurile Island has prevented much action from taking place.

In the winter the cranes congregate in places where farmers provide then with grain. There are four established feeding centers and several dozen satellite feeding stations — both public and private—in throughout eastern Hokkaido. At the Tsurui-Ito Sanctuary just outside Kushiro National Park, as many as 300 birds gather in the winter for free corn hand outs. The cranes have become very used to humans and are even regarded as pests by some. Farmers complain about them raiding fields and stealing grain intended for livestock. Some have complained about the birds pecking at their windows expecting a handout.

Yuka Matsumoto wrote in the Yomiuri Shimbun: The crane population across Hokkaido has grown to about 1,800 from 33 that were counted when the feeding began. Now the distance between Japanese cranes and people has shrunk, and the birds sometimes damage crops. There have also been many accidents in which birds have collided with a car or an electric wire, and there are concerns about a possible pandemic of infectious diseases that could affect the species. Believing it is necessary to disperse their habitat in the wild, the government laid out a policy in 2016 to discontinue feeding the birds in the future. [Source: Yuka Matsumoto, Yomiuri Shimbun, January 26, 2017]

Tsurui-Ito Tancho Sanctuary in the village of Tsurui is next Kushiro Shitsugen, the marsh where most Japanese cranes live. In the 1980s, the Wild Bird Society of Japan (WBSJ) established the sanctuary on the land, which it took over from a villager. Its conservation activities have been recognized by the government, and the organization is entrusted with feeding the birds in winter at the Tsurui-Ito facility and the Tsurumidai feeding site, also in the village. The WBSJ also works on conservation and research of the wetland.

The head of the local conservation group Tancho Community, Otonari currently works with villagers in preparing the bird’s feed and taking countermeasures to address the crop damage problem. “Simply cutting the amount of feed we give them will not lead to the dispersion [of the species’ habitats],” Otonari said. He plans to canvas villagers’ opinions about the issue. “I hope that conservation and utilization of the cranes will be an axis for the village’s development,” Otonari said.

The cranes are a big tourist draw. “Before dawn in midwinter, when the temperature drops as low as minus 30 C, a number of photographers gather around the Otowabashi bridge over the Setsurigawa river, where the cranes roost. They aim to take fantastical photos featuring the silhouette of the birds spreading their wings as if dancing in the river fog. With a population of 2,500, the village has more than 150,000 domestic and foreign visitors every year who come to watch the elegant birds. It’s like a recreation of the folk tale “Tsuru no Ongaeshi” (The grateful crane), in which a crane repays a man who helped her when she was injured. Image Sources: Wikimedia Commons

Mochizuki Gyokkei, Pair of Painted Screens with a Flock of Cranes, 1906

Text Sources: Animal Diversity Web animaldiversity.org ; National Geographic, Live Science, Natural History magazine, David Attenborough books, Daily Yomiuri, Yomiuri Shimbun, Japan National Tourist Organization (JNTO), New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Smithsonian magazine, Discover magazine, The New Yorker, Time, BBC, CNN, Reuters, Associated Press, AFP, Lonely Planet Guides, Wikipedia, The Guardian, Top Secret Animal Attack Files website and various books and other publications.

Last updated March 2025