White-naped crane
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White- naped crane ( Grus vipio ) |
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| Pallas , 1811 |
The white- naped crane ( Grus vipio , syn .: Antigone vipio ) is an East Asian crane bird that breeds in northeastern Mongolia and northern China and overwinters on the Korean peninsula and Japan. During the breeding season it lives in pairs and very secretly. It forms large flocks on the migration and in the wintering areas.
Its population is estimated at a maximum of 5,300 individuals.
features
Appearance of adult birds
The white-naped crane weighs five to six kilograms at a height of 130 to 140 centimeters and a wingspan of 200 to 210 centimeters. There is no noticeable gender dimorphism , mostly the male is slightly larger. A reliable distinguishing feature of the sexes is possible with the duet call, here the male moves the angled wings up and down, while the female leaves them attached and does not move.
The predominantly gray plumage is colored white on the throat, crown, back of the head and on the back of the neck. The plumage is also white from the throat to the upper third of the front neck. The wings of the hand, large elytra and anal wing are black. The arm wings are gray at the base and dark brown distally. The other wing feathers are light gray and contrast sharply with the fletching of the chest and stomach. On the forehead and on the sides of the head there is a large area of unfledged, red skin that covers the eye area and the ear area. The irises are orange, and the long legs are bluish-pink in color.
Fledglings
Immediately after hatching, the downy boy has a downy dress with a yellowish-brown base tone, but overall it is more contrasting than the downy dress of other crane downy chicks. The front and body sides are gray. A narrow brown band runs from the back of the neck to the back, which has the shape of a triangular patch in the shoulder area. The upper sides of the wings are maroon, while the undersides of the wings are almost white. The abdomen and the inner sides of the thighs are bare. The second downy dress is already less contrasting, the top of the body now has a reddish brown overall tone.
When young, the white-naped crane has a red-brown upper side of the body. The head and neck are slightly lighter than the back. The throat is straw yellow-whitish. The underside of the body is gray.
behavior
As with all crane species, the behavioral elements of the white-naped crane include a dance, which is relatively poor in elements. The dance includes high jumps, combined with flapping wings, throwing up tufts of grass, turning in the air and on the ground. The dance is performed by both adult and young, not yet sexually mature cranes and is most often observed in the wintering areas.
Crane pairs also show a duet song . The male lifts his wings up over his back in a characteristic way, lets the wing tips hang and opens and closes the wings in a pumping way during the duet singing. The female, on the other hand, keeps her wings closed during the entire dance ceremony and answers every call from the male with two or three higher-sounding sounds. The acoustically and optically very conspicuous duet chants serve both to reinforce the couple bond and to mark the breeding area. It is shown both during the breeding season and in the wintering areas.
Movement and Age
As with other cranes, the flight is straight and calm with wide, slow flaps of the wings. He rises from the ground with a quick run.
The white-naped crane can live 25 to 30 years in the wild, and 50 or more years in captivity.
Occurrence
The breeding areas of the white-naped crane are in northeastern Mongolia , in northeastern China and in adjacent southeastern Russia . Around 3,000 individuals of the western population migrate south through China, rest in the Yellow River Delta and winter in southern China on the lower reaches of the Yangtze . Most of them are at Poyang Hu and Dongting Lake . About 2,000 individuals of the eastern population migrate across the Korean Peninsula . Hundreds of birds winter in the demilitarized zone between North and South Korea. The first flocks reach the Korean wintering areas in early October. The remaining cranes move on to the large Japanese southern island of Kyūshū . Here they winter near the town of Idsumi . They arrive in Japan in December and leave this wintering area again in February.
habitat
The habitat of the white-naped crane are flat wetlands in spacious river valleys, on lake shores and in steppe with low vegetation. The preferred habitats include wide sedge-cotton-grass swamps and sedge-cane grass swamp meadows, which alternate with oak-birch forest strips. During their migration and in their hibernation areas, they also use rice fields and floodplain, as well as agricultural land, where they look for abandoned grain, seeds and tubers.
In the Amur region, the white-naped crane shares the breeding area with the Red-necked crane . The Red-necked crane arrives in the breeding area earlier than the white-naped crane. Its breeding ground is deeper than that of the white-naped crane in the swamps. The white-naped crane, on the other hand, tends to stay in the edge areas of the same briar habitat. It usually breeds closer to the agricultural land. These two species also differ in their foraging for food. The Red-necked crane looks for small animals and food plants on the waterfront, while the white-naped crane looks for tubers in the boggy ground. The adaptability of the white-naped crane to humans is also evident in the Dagurian steppe in Mongolia. There the way of smallholder livestock farming has adapted and run with the herds. The cattle do not seem to go so deep into the reed pools and sedge wet meadows, so that the white-naped cranes can go about their breeding business undisturbed.
food
The diet consists of aquatic plants, berries, cereals, roots and herbs. He also catches insects, frogs and mice while raising the young.
Reproduction
White-naped cranes reach sexual maturity between three and four years of age. They are monogamous birds that mate over several reproductive periods. They appear at their breeding grounds when the swamps are still partly icy, there is still snowfall and there is heavy frost at night. The breeding sites are occupied as soon as the swamps thaw. In the breeding areas the pairs live strictly territorially separated and defend their territory vigorously against other conspecifics.
White-naped cranes prefer to build their nests in open areas of the swamps, which are sparsely overgrown and surrounded by shallow water. The nest lies directly on the water or on a Bülte and the nest base is a round, pounded platform. The base is built from tufts of grass, moss and sedge roots and is usually still soaked in water. In contrast, the nest hollow, which is covered with dry sedge stalks and leaves, is completely dry. White-naped cranes often use their nests for several years in a row.
The female lays two light brown, reddish speckled eggs between the third decade of April and the first days of May. These are mainly hatched by the female for about 30 days. The downy cubs hatch from late May to early June. Aggressive behavior between the two nest siblings is not observed. However, if the first hatched chick leaves the nest before the second has hatched or is not yet strong enough to follow, the two parent birds accompany the first boy. This usually leads to the death of the second boy. The young birds flee their nests and become independent after 70 to 75 days. When food is scarce, usually only one young animal survives. The bird breeds for the first time when it is three to four years old.
Duration
During the Second World War and the Korean War , the wintering areas of the white-naped crane were severely affected. It is therefore assumed that the population was lowest in the following years and that it has recovered somewhat since then. Today the population is threatened by the destruction of wetlands in the breeding areas on the Amur and in parts of northern China. In the Red List of Endangered Species , the white-naped crane is listed with the note vulnerable (endangered).
supporting documents
literature
- David H. Ellis , George F. Gee , Claire M. Mirande (Eds.): Cranes: Their Biology, Husbandry, and Conversation , Hancock House Publishers, Blaine 1996, ISBN 0-88839-385-7
- Peter Matthiessen : The Kings of the Skies - Traveling with Cranes , Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 2010, ISBN 978-3-596-18195-7
- RL Potapov, VE Fling (HRSG): Handbook of the birds of the Soviet Union. Volume 4: Galliformes, Gruiformes. Aula Verlag, Wiesbaden 1989, ISBN 3-89104-417-8
Web links
- www.markuskappeler.ch
- Antigone vipio in the endangered Red List species the IUCN 2008. Posted by: BirdLife International, 2006. Retrieved on January 24 of 2009.
- Videos, photos and sound recordings for Grus vipio in the Internet Bird Collection
Individual evidence
- ↑ Ellis et al., P. 277
- ↑ Popatov & Flink, 1989, p 235
- ↑ Popatov & Flink, 1989, p. 238
- ↑ Ellis et al., P. 277
- ↑ Popatov & Flink, 1989, p 236
- ↑ Ellis et al., P. 277
- ↑ Popatov & Flink, 1989, p 236
- ↑ Popatov & Flink, 1989, p. 237
- ↑ Matthiessen, p. 44
- ↑ Matthiessen, p. 107
- ↑ Popatov & Flink, 1989, p. 238