CRANES IN RUSSIA | Facts and Details

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.

White-Naped Cranes

The white-naped crane is named after the white stripe that runs along the bird's neck. Standing up to 1.5 meters and weighing between 4.75 and 6.50 kilograms, these large birds inhabit wetlands and adjacent grasslands in China, eastern Siberia (neat Vladivostok), southern Japan and the demilitarized zone between North and South Korea.

Predominately grey, with a red spot around their eyes, white-naped cranes are monogamous. The incubate two eggs which hatch in about 30 days. Only about 4,900-5,300 of the birds remain. Their existence has been threatened by loss of habitat and disruption of migration patterns.

Siberian Cranes

Siberian cranes (Grus leucogeranus) are beautiful, snowy white birds that reach a height of 1.25 meters (four feet) and have two meter (6.7 foot) wingspan. Often called “snow wreathes,” they have a bright red face and beak and black primary feathers on their wings,, Otherwise they are completely white. Regarded as the most specialized of cranes and the most endangered, Siberian cranes reside, nest and roost exclusively in bogs, marshes and wetlands. One reason for their severely endangered status is the shrinking of wetland habitats worldwide. [Source: George Archibald, National Geographic, May 1994]

Siberian cranes are majestic birds that have been described as poetry in motion because of their slow and deliberate movements and graceful mating dance. Their vocalizations are said to be flute-like with tones that float down to earth like music from the sky. Siberian cranes are the most far-ranging cranes. They migrate 5,000 kilometers (3,000 miles) between their breeding ground in the Siberian Arctic and their wintering grounds in China and Iran. The journey of teh two populations passes through 11 countries and covers large distances over inhospitable terrain. The birds stop at wetlands along the way and call continuously when they fly.

Siberian cranes live a long time. The world’s oldest living bird, according to the Guiness Book of World Records, is a Siberian crane named "Wolf" that died at the age of 82 at the International Crane Foundation facility in Wisconsin. Cranes have long been associated with longevity in China and Japan, where pictures and statues of cranes are displayed at weddings and birth ceremonies. They are symbols of health and prosperity and a life without war, therefore these birds are the symbol of peace. [Source: Catherine Bartnik, Animal Diversity Web (ADW) |=|]

There are two main populations of Siberian cranes: in western and eastern Russia. The eastern population migrates during winter from the Arctic tundra of eastern Russia to China while the western population migrates from Arctic tundra of western Russia and winters in Iran and formerly, in India and Nepal. Western Siberian cranes on the verge of extinction. Only one of them was left in the wild as of 2010.

Demoiselle Cranes

Demoiselle cranes (Grus virgo or Anthropoides virgo) are a species of crane found in central Eurasian and Siberia, ranging from the Black Sea to Mongolia and Northeast China. There is also a small breeding population in Turkey. These cranes are migratory birds. Those found in western Eurasia spend the winter in Africa while the birds from Asia, Mongolia and China winter in the Indian subcontinent. These cranes are is symbolically significant in the culture of India, where they are known as koonj or kurjaa. [Source: Wikipedia]

Demoiselle cranes feature prominently in the literature, poetry and language of northern India. Beautiful women are often compared to koonj because their long and thin shape is considered graceful. Metaphorical references are made to koonj for people who have ventured far from home or undertaken hazardous journeys. The name koonj is derived from the Sanskrit word kraunch, which is an Indo-European term for crane. It is claimed in the ancient story of Valmiki, the composer of the great Hindu epic Ramayana, that the first verse of the Ramayana was inspired by the sight of a hunter killing the male of a pair of cranes that were courting. Observing the lovelorn female circling and crying in grief, he cursed the hunter in verse. The flying formation of koonj during migrations inspired infantry formations in ancient India. The Mahabharata epic describes both warring sides adopting the koonj formation on the second day of the Kurukshetra War.

Cranes in general have long been an inspiration for art, literature and mythology. They have also had held a place in religion, appearing in pictographs, petroglyphs, and ancient Egyption tombs. Especially is Asia, they are symbols of longevity, happiness, maternal bliss, good luck, watchfulness, steadiness and mutual aid Cranes tend to be long-living animals. Their lifespan of demoiselle cranes in the wild is estimated to 27 years. One in captivity, lived to 67 years old. Demoiselle cranes are currently listed as a species of Least Concern on the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species.

Red-Crowned Cranes (Japanese Cranes)

Red-Crowned Cranes (Japanese Cranes) are the largest birds in Japan. 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. [Sources: Jennifer Ackerman, National Geographic, January 2003, Tsuneo Hayashida, National Geographic, October 1983]

A large number of red-crowned cranes live in the Kushiro Mire, a 45,000-acre 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.

Image Sources: Wikimedia Commons

Text Sources: Animal Diversity Web animaldiversity.org ; National Geographic, Live Science, Natural History magazine, David Attenborough books, 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 May 2025