BHARATPUR (Rajasthan): There is an air of despair among bird watchers and officials at the Keoladeo Bird Sanctuary here. The rains have playedtruant so far and the swamps are dry. Without aquatic life, that is food for the migratory birds, many of the winged visitors may not show up this winter, which is bad news for tourism.
Steamboat Springs — Mary Barber sees them nearly every day in the spring.
The longtime local watches as a family of sandhill cranes plays out a ritual that has stretched more than a decade.
“They always nest in the marshy area near the pond, and once the chicks are big enough, they go across the road every morning, and they return every night,” she said Thursday.
 Photo provided |
| Mossy Kilcher holds a dead crane after it was attacked and killed by an eagle Thursday at her Seaside Farm. The eagle had dive-bombed it, taking a chunk out of its middle. The crane was an adult weighing about 11 pounds. |
Photo: tetu/Flickr
THE GREY CROWNED CRANE (BALEARICA regulorum) lives on dry savannah land but nests on wetlands.
The exhibition features 59 photos of red-headed cranes by Nha, including over ten photos that won prizes at photo contests at home and abroad.
Rare birds have been spotted flying above Norfolk's coastline and countryside in record numbers as Britain's warming climate brings them flocking from abroad.
Photo found on Flickr Creative Commons photo site. This crownie lives at the Calgary Zoo.
CALGARY - Unseasonably cold weather has dealt a blow to the Calgary Zoo's whooping crane breeding program, freezing two of the rare birds' eggs.
SEGUIN, Texas — The winter food supply for whooping cranes in South Texas appears to be more than adequate, according to a seven-year study on the effects of freshwater inflows on habitat.
ATLANTA ,April 27 /PRNewswire/ -- Vina Ventisquero's Yali brand and Operation Migration (OM) are proud to announce a new strategic partnership whose objective is to build awareness and support for a unique type of conservation work that seeks to rescue one of the most famous ofNorth America's endangered species from extinction.
He described a visit to North Korea during which he wanted to discuss, among other things, landmines and the fate of the white naped and red crowned cranes, who use the DMZ as a rest area on their migration pattern.
http://tinyurl.com/dd6j7j
A Eurasian crane (Grus grus) by the name Aino is no common crane, as she was fitted with a satellite transmitter in Salla, Eastern Lapland in May 2008, in order that her migration route could be observed on a regular basis.
Despite welcome rains in late March, much of Texas remains parched by prolonged drought of historic proportions, and wildlife die-offs of whooping cranes and deer have been reported.
The 10th aerial census of the 2008-09 crane season at Aransas was conducted April 7 with United States Wildlife Service observer Tom Stehn flying in a Cessna 210 piloted by Gary Ritchey of Air Transit Solutions
As we arrive at the Hula Valley Park and Nature Reserve, a huge flock of gray cranes lifts suddenly into the air and begins circling on the warm thermals above the park. There are hundreds and hundreds of the huge birds gliding in large, lazy circles above the lake and marshes, first white, then black, then silver.
EDMONTON — When the world's last remaining flock of wild whooping cranes set off on its migration south from the nesting grounds on the Alberta/Northwest Territories border last fall, wildlife biologists on both sides of the border were upbeat about how the 4,000-kilometre flight to Texas would turn out.
PANO - Sarus cranes, a rare species listed in the Red Book, are now flocking back to Tram Chim National Park, Tam Nong District, Dong Thap Province.
Many have been observed living in sections A1 and A5 of the National Park.
This is good news since the sarus cranes fled from Tram Chim, which was once their habitat, because of a large fire within the park area some years ago.
The return of the birds also indicates that the environment in the park has gradually been restored.
Tram Chim is home to more than 250 kinds of birds, including many in the Red Book.
Translated by Thu Nguyen
The valiant effort to save North America's biggest bird from extinction has suffered a setback --nearly one-fifth of the cranes have died in the last 12 months. Drought and a wasting disease are the latest threats
"Journey North engages students in a global study of wildlife migration and seasonal change. K-12 students share their own field observations with classmates across North America. They track the coming of spring through the migration patterns of monarch butterflies, robins, hummingbirds, whooping cranes, gray whales, bald eagles— and other birds and mammals; the budding of plants; changing sunlight; and other natural events. Find migration maps, pictures, standards-based lesson plans, activities and information to help students make local observations and fit them into a global context. Widely considered a best-practices model for education, Journey North is the nation's premiere "citizen science" project for children." Journey North Website
The Great Crane Project aims to re-establish a breeding population of cranes at a new wetland site in the UK, securing its future as a breeding species.
The project is a partnership between WWT, Pensthorpe Conservation Trust, the RSPB and supported by Jordans Cereals. A short-list of potential release sites is being drawn up, and techniques for rearing young cranes are being investigated.
I took this photo in March 2002. It is from a female Siberian Crane female during breeding season. The nictitating membrane is a transparent or translucent third eyelid present in some animals that can be drawn across the eye for protection and to moisten the eye while also keeping visibility (Wikipedia definition).
"The cranes arriving signify that spring is here," said Michael Blenden, project leader at the San Luis Valley National Wildlife Refuge. "The Rocky Mountain population of greater Sandhill cranes spend the winter in central New Mexico along the Rio Grande valley. And starting around mid-February they move north to the San Luis Valley here in Colorado. By mid-March to early April they will be departing for their breeding grounds in southern Montana, southeastern Idaho and Wyoming."
About 26,000 cranes flock to the San Luis Valley to take advantage of the food resources and wetland habitat available at the Monte Vista National Wildlife Refuge.
"The migration of the Sandhill crane is pretty unique. There aren't too many places where we see this concentration of cranes," said Scott Miller, Biologist at the San Luis Valley National Wildlife Refuge.
Don't miss one of
Faro's 6th Annual Crane and Sheep Viewing Festival is quickly approaching and this year promises to be one of the best yet!
| Major study in the Gangetic plain finds amazing profusion of birds in farmed regions |
Thiruvananthapuram: Is agriculture inevitably inimical to wild birds? Not necessarily so, according to a field survey that was recently carried out in Uttar Pradesh. It found that the vast, fertile Gangetic plain, one of the most densely populated and heavily farmed areas in the world, is nevertheless able to support an amazing profusion of bird life.
“Agriculture is the biggest threat to bird diversity worldwide,” said K.S. Gopi Sundar who is with the International Crane Foundation....
CORPUS CHRISTI — After suffering the worst winter in 20 years, the flock of whooping cranes at Aransas National Wildlife Refuge soon will journey back to their summer home in Canada, but wildlife managers are concerned they have not had enough food to fatten them up for the 2,500-mile trip.................
AUSTIN – The Texas Department of Agriculture has been granted approval by the Environmental Protection Agency to issue a Section 18 specific exemption allowing the use of anthraquinone (Avipel Liquid) to repel sandhill crane on corn seed........
Dineshpur (Uttarakhand), Mar 16 (ANI): Authorities in Uttarakhand are keen to develop the Haripura Water Park, frequented by bird watchers as a prominent tourist destination to spot Siberian cranes and other migratory birds.
A large variety of migratory birds make this region as their winter homes to breed and nest. And these number over 140 species of migratory birds.......
The Suffolk wetland which the birds are nesting in was a carrot field until the RSPB turned it into Lakenheath Fen Nature Reserve 11 years ago. Large-scale drainage of fens for agriculture had led to the birds' disappearance in the 1600s.....
The metre high birds have only bred successfully a handful of times in the the UK since 1981 after being absent for 400 years.
Now the Great Crane Project, a partnership between the Wildfowl & Wetlands Trust (WWT), the RSPB and Pensthorpe Conservation Trust, aims to secure the future of the crane as a British breeding bird.
Eggs brought over from Germany will be incubated, hatched and hand-reared at Slimbridge. Work is expected to start this summer and be complete by spring 2010. Once ready, the birds will be released into the wild on the Somerset Levels, where there is existing habitat suitable for them to nest and feed in..
Debbie Pain, WWT's director of conservation, said the breeding programme will help the birds to learn how to live in British wetlands again at "crane school" where the birds are taught how to adapt.
She said: "Cranes are magnificent birds driven from their wetland habitats and hunted to extinction long ago. Now we are determined to give them another chance at survival.
"Thanks to lessons learnt in crane school we now have the feathery-fingered skills to raise crane chicks. Roll on 2010 - we cannot wait to begin teaching these amazing birds how to live in British wetlands once again."
| Red-headed crane doctor VietNamNet Bridge Article | ||||||
| 15/03/2009 | ||||||
Doan Hong (photo) is an amateur photographer who got involved in photography much later than most other cameramen who love taking photos of red-headed cranes like him. But Doan Hong is the one who has the largest number of photos of this species of birds. Because of his love for red-headed cranes, he has become virtually an expert on this species.
As the Director of the Dong Thap Department of Health, Doctor Doan Hong is very busy so he doesn’t have much time for his avocation like professional photographers. But his passion for red-headed cranes has helped him overcome problems of time.
Many years now, hearing that red-headed cranes have arrived in Tram Chim sanctuary, he leaves home on the first day of the lunar New Year to go to Tram Chim to take photos of birds.
The road from his home to Tram Chim National Park is nearly one hundred kilometres so Doan Hong has to depart at 1am in the morning to capture red-headed cranes’ activities. He arrives home at 10 in the evening.
For the past ten years, he has always spent his weekends with red-headed cranes whenever they returned to Tram Chim National Park. He has been injured at least three times while shooting photos of red-headed cranes.
Thanks to his patience, Doan Hong has taken many nice photos of red-headed cranes, including one entitled “Cranes come to field”, which won the gold medal of a photo contest in Sri Lanka in 2000.
“I was born in Dong Thap Muoi so I knew and loved red-headed cranes when I was a child,” Hong said.
Over ten years ago, as scientists warned about the extinction of red-headed cranes, Hong was afraid that one day he wouldn’t see them anymore, so he decided to take photos of them for archives.
He bought a camera and began taking photos. From a doctor, Doan Hong has become a photographer, thanks to red-headed cranes.
His passion for red-headed cranes has helped the doctor have the largest collection and the most beautiful photos of red-headed cranes. He has won over 20 photographic prizes for photos of red-headed cranes.
For him, a prize is not the goal, but the discovery of the life of this species of bird. He spent time and burnt hundreds of rolls of film to capture every move of red-headed cranes to help scientists have more materials.
He has never held a solo exhibition, but annually presents hundreds of photos of red-headed cranes to research institutions and scientists. A photo that he presented to the International Crane Preservation Association is said to be worth $1,000.
He said initially he used hundreds of rolls of film but didn’t get one good photo of red-headed cranes.
After over ten years taking photos of red-headed cranes, Doan Hong’s knowledge of red-headed cranes can compare to experts’. He has written many articles to call for the preservation of this species of birds.
“The Mekong Delta has less than 1,000 red-headed cranes. If each year 100 cranes are lost, we will not have a crane in 10 years,” he said. |
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Bad weather can stop birds in the air as well as traffic on land and the sea.
That is exactly what happened on the southern Adriatic island of Korcula on Wednesday, according to "Hina'" news agency.
A Mediterranean wind called "Jugo" (south) accompanied by lightning and rain stopped around one hundred grey cranes flying to their northern summer location.
The birds stopped in the Lumbarda area on Korcula and surprised residents because it is unusual for cranes to stop there because of bad weather at this time of the year.
Local resident Drago Jurjevic said cranes sometimes stopped at Korcula for a rest at the end of March but had never before done so during the first week of the month.
Locals are caring for the birds to prevent poaching while they wait for better conditions in which to continue their flight.
Cranes are large, long-legged and long-necked birds of the species Gruiformes and the genus Gruidae that do not nest in Croatia.
AUSTWELL - Biologists found three more dead whooping cranes on Sunday, making this winter the deadliest on record in the past 20 years for the endangered species.
Twenty-one birds of a flock of 270 have been found dead at the whooping cranes' wintering home in and around the Aransas National Wildlife Refuge, said whooping crane coordinator Tom Stehn via his flight report. Stehn, a biologist with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, conducts regular aerial surveys to observe the cranes.
The second deadliest winter on record was when 11 cranes from a flock of 146 died in 1990.
Biologists also presume dead 34 cranes that failed to return from the nesting locale at Wood Buffalo National Park in Canada. That means that 55 whooping cranes or more than 20 percent of the flock died during the past year.
The cranes usually start migrating back to Canada at the end of March with most cranes leaving the first two weeks in April. Stehn doesn't know how the poor conditions of the cranes may affect the migration.
