Cranes during Focus On Nature Tours in Japan and North America

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Of the 15 species of cranes in the world, 7 have been seen during FONT winter tours in Japan. Included here is information about the Red-crowned Crane, White-naped Crane, Siberian Crane, Hooded Crane, Common Crane, Demoiselle Crane, Sandhill Crane, and Whooping Crane.
Since 1994, there have been 21 FONT tours in Japan during which cranes have been seen.

The RED-CROWNED (or JAPANESE) CRANE
(also called, in mainland Asia, the MANCHURIAN CRANE)

Red-crowned, or Japanese, Cranes in Hokkaido, Japan

The RED-CROWNED CRANE is the second rarest crane in the world (after the WHOOPING CRANE of North America).
The total population in the wild has recently been between about 2,700 birds (about 1,200 in Japan & approximately 1,500 in eastern mainland Asia) .

There is a resident population on Japan's northern island, Hokkaido. That is the only place in Japan where the species normally occurs.
At one time, it bred on all 4 of the main Japanese islands, but it declined dramatically in Japan in the 19th Century.
By 1890, it remained only in Hokkaido, where it nested (and continued to do so) in marshes in the southeast part of the island.
In the 1920's, the total Japanese population was ONLY ABOUT 20 INDIVIDUALS.
Since then, the number in Hokkaido, due to protection and artificial feeding (in the winter), has increased to over 1,200 birds.

A migratory population on continental Asia (of about 1,500 birds) breeds in northeast China, eastern Russia, and Mongolia, and winters in eastern China and Korea. Nesting is in large wetlands. Feeding is in marshes with relatively deep water. Nests are in areas with standing dead vegetation. Preferred foraging sites are wet (such as rivers, marshes, and lakes), but on occasion birds will forage on dikes and in croplands.

One of these Red-crowned Cranes (a "Manchurian Crane", rather than a "Japanese Crane"), an immature bird, that would normally winter (as noted above) in eastern China or Korea, was seen on the southern Japanese island of Kyushu, with wintering White-naped and Hooded Cranes, during our FONT tour in February 2005. It was the first occurrence of a Red-crowned Crane there in 37 years!

Watching and listening to a flock of Japanese Cranes, as we do during our tours in the winter on Hokkaido, in northern Japan, as the birds fly against a blue sky and feed and dance on a snowy field is one of the world's thrilling natural experiences!

During our tours the spring, we enjoy family groups of these cranes in the marshes, along with other sights and sounds of that season.

More photographs of Japanese, or Red-crowned, Cranes follow.

The above 3 photos© taken during a FONT Japan tour, in January 2000, by Joe Fuhrman, of California, USA.
The following 3 photos taken during the FONT Japan tour in January 2001, by Allan Beach, of Ohio, USA.
The final photo taken by Armas Hill, during his first visit to Japan in 1984.

Yearly counts of Japanese Cranes on the island of Hokkaido in Japan
(a wonderful story):

1952        33
1953        42
1954        52
1955        61
1956        76
1957        92
1958        125
1959        139
1960        172
1961        175
1962        184
1963        147
1964        154
1965        172
1966        170
1967        200
1968        171
1969        212
1970        179
1971        147
1972        222
1973        233
1974        253
1975        194
1976        220
1977        257
1978        214
1979        271
1980        267
1981        295
1982        320 (the year of the above close-up photo by Armas Hill)
1983        345
1984        327
1985        384
1986        383
1987        424
1988        485
1989        356
1990        441
1991        499
1992        557 (the year of the first FONT winter birding tour in Japan)
1993        611
1994        628
1995        607
1996        598
1997        586
1998        616
1999        709
2000        519
2001        798
2002        808
2003        908
2004      1,003
2005      1,081
2006      1,013
2007      1,200
2008      1,280

The WHITE-NAPED CRANE

The elegant WHITE-NAPED CRANE breeds, for the most part, in wetlands in northeastern China, at about 6 localities. Some (several hundred birds) breed in adjacent Mongolia. A few (less than 20 pairs) breed in southeast Russia. The total population of the species is estimated at about 5,000 individuals.

Birds from the western portion of the breeding range (approximately 2,000) migrate south through China, resting in the Yellow River Delta, and then wintering in the middle Yangtze River Valley.

Birds from the eastern portion of the breeding range (approximately 2,000) migrate south through the Korean Peninsula.
Several hundred winter in the Demilitarized Zone between North and South Korea.
The remainder continue to the Japanese island of Kyushu, particularly to the area of Arasaki on the west side of the island. In the past, the White-naped Crane was more numerous and widely distributed than it is now.

However, also in the past (but not as long ago), there were less than there are today. The population was at its lowest after World War II and the Korean War. Since then, numbers have increased in parts of the range, and decreased in others.

Arasaki, on Kyushu, Japan, is a very important wintering site for the species. It is the only Japanese site for the bird. In 1992, just over 2,000 White-naped Cranes wintered there, along with over 8,000 Hooded Cranes. By the year 2000, there were about 2,500 White-naped Cranes wintering at Arasaki.


The photo above of a White-naped Crane was taken during a FONT Japan tour, in January 1998, by Bill Leaning of Virginia, USA. Photos that follow were taken during various FONT tours. The first photo was taken in February 2005. Trevor Ford of Australia (second photo, left side), Allan Beach of Ohio, USA in January 2001 (third photo, right side), and by Bill Leaning in 1998 (fourth photo).

SIBERIAN CRANE

The SIBERIAN CRANE, a large white bird, with black on its wings, is the third rarest carne in the world (after the WHOOPING and RED-CROWNED CRANES). Until 1981, it was thought to be even more rare and endangered. During that year, about 800 birds were discovered wintering at Lake Poyang, China's largest freshwater lake, along the Yangtze River. With that, the known population nearly doubled. Subsequent field surveys showed the total population of the species to be about 3,000 birds.

But still the outlook for the species certainly continues to be precarious. According to the crane specialist, George Archibald, "from the tundra to the subtropics, few endangered species involve so many complex problems in so many countries as does the Siberian crane". So, the apt classification of the species as "endangered".

There are 3 populations of Siberian Cranes. All but a few of the 3,000 birds belong to the eastern population, which breeds in northeastern Siberia, and winters along the Yangtze River in China.

Another very small central population has bred in the lower basin of the Konovat River in western Siberia, and has wintered in the Indian state of Rajasthan (most regularly in the Keoladero National Park). When this population was observed at its wintering grounds in 1992-93, it included just 5 birds. Only 4 birds were observed in the Kunovat breeding grounds in 1995.

The western population (also very small and threatened), which apparently held at 8 to 14 birds in the late 1980's and early 1990's, has wintered at a single site along the southern coast of the Caspian Sea in Iran. The exact location of the breeding grounds of that population is unknown, but it's thought to be in the extreme northern portion of European Russia.

Thus, two populations of this species are extremely vulnerable (on the verge of extinction). These populations have declined from just over a hundred birds in the 1960's (when they were discovered).

The Siberian Crane has occurred as a vagrant in Japan in recent years, most often recently with the White-naped and Hooded Cranes from mainland Asia that winter on Kyushu. Those in Japan are wanderers, on occasion, from the larger eastern population of the species that normally winters in China.

Actually, in the past, the Siberian Crane was a common winter visitor in Japan on Kyushu prior to the Mejii Era. Throughout the 20th Century, it became accidental, but there were some occurrences from Hokkaido south to Okinawa. Mostly, however, on Kyushu, but some on Hokkaido: in Oct-Dec 1977 and in May-Sep 1985. The latter was a summering bird in the Kushiro district, where the Japanese population of the Red-crowned Crane occurs.

Where Siberian Cranes breed in Asia, huge distances separate nesting pairs. Within each 1000 square kilometers in the breeding range, there are only 1 or 2 pairs of cranes.

The Siberian is the most aquatic of cranes, exclusively using wetlands for nesting, feeding, and roosting. The nests are in bogs and marshes. In migration and in wintering areas, the bird prefers to feed and roost in shallow wetlands, even artificial water impoundments. Its preferred foods are roots, sprouts, and stems of sedges and other aquatic plants.

Siberian Cranes do not occur in Japan every year, but individuals have been seen during 5 FONT tours in Kyushu in the winter.

Two photos follow of Siberian Cranes during FONT tours in Kyushu, Japan. The first was photographed in 2000 by Trevor Ford of Australia, the second in 2001 by Allan Beach of Ohio, USA. Another photograph follows of a Siberian with White-naped Cranes, by Trevor Ford.

HOODED CRANE

The HOODED CRANE breeds in wetlands in two areas of central Siberia. A very few have been known to breed in China since 1991. Nesting occurs in isolated, widely scattered bogs in the tiaga and other forested wetlands - preferring mossy areas with a few larch trees, and avoiding areas either too open or too densely forested.

The Hooded Crane winters at a few localities in Japan, Korea, and eastern China. The total population has been estimated, during recent years, from about 10,000 to 11,800 birds, having increased due to artificial feeding (particularly at one prime wintering site, at Arasaki, in Kyushu, Japan). At Arasaki, more than 80 per cent of the world's Hooded Cranes spend the winter. In that area in 1992, there were nearly 9,000 birds. The species winters at only one other place in Japan: at Yashiro on Honshu, with about 100 birds there.

In Japan and Korea, the Hooded Crane winters almost exclusively at feeding stations and in agricultural fields. In China, they tend to roost along the shores of rivers and shallow lakes, and to forage along the muddy edges of lakes and nearby grasslands and rice paddies.

The population of Hooded Cranes has fluctuated considerably since the 1920's, but at present, the number is probably as large as at any point since then.

The first of the photographs below is of Hooded Cranes with White-naped Cranes and a Sandhill Crane. The photo was taken by Trevor Ford of Australia.
The second of the following photographs, of Hooded and White-naped Cranes, was taken by Bill Leaning of Virginia, USA, during a FONT tour in January 1998.

SANDHILL & COMMON CRANES

A very few SANDHILL CRANES occur at Arasaki, on Kyushu, Japan, every winter, among the HOODED and WHITE-NAPED CRANES.
The Sandhill, the most common North American crane, does breed as well in eastern Siberia.

The Common Crane, which occurs across Eurasia, is also an annual visitor to Arasaki, on Kyushu, Japan, with 1 or 2 birds each winter, and with maybe a hydrid or two (between Common & Hooded).

Common and Sandhill Cranes have been seen during all FONT winter tours on Kyushu.


In this photo, White-naped, Hooded, and a Sandhill Crane
during a FONT tour


In this photo, a mass of Hooded & White-naped Cranes in Kyushu, Japan
No where else in the world are there so many of these species.

DEMOISELLE CRANE

The DEMOISELLE CRANE is a rare visitor to Japan. It is the seventh of the cranes in Japan presented here.

Most Demoiselle Cranes in Japan have been individuals wintering with the crane flocks, of Hooded and White-naped, on Kyushu.
But there have been a few instances elsewhere in Japan, including one bird on Hokkaido in May and June 1974 (in the Kushiro district, where the Japanese population of the Red-crowned Crane occurs).

During one FONT winter tour on Kyushu, 3 Demoiselle Cranes were seen. During another tour (in February 2005), one was seen.

A photograph of a Demoiselle Crane, with Hooded Cranes, during a FONT Japan Winter Birding Tour
(photo by Trevor Ford of Australia)

In North America, the WHOOPING CRANE, is the rarest crane in the world, although not as rare as it once was.

2005 was a very special year for the Whooping Crane. That is particularly so in relation to the long-established population that breeds in the Northwest Territories of Canada and winters in the Aransas area of coastal Texas.
A census flight, this winter, in a light plane over Aransas counted 216 Whooping Cranes, the most there in about a century!

Since the birds reached their low point in 1941, with only 15 recorded in Texas after the disappearance of those that had wintered nearby on the immense King Ranch, the wildlife services of the United States and Canada, working together, have brought about an amazing comeback.

After years of work, protecting and nurturing the birds, the total Whooping Crane population in North America in 2005 reached 470.
And 213 of them are in the self-sustaining natural flock that arrives each fall at Aransas in Texas. The rest are resident in Florida, in captivity, or in a flock that was re-introduced in Wisconsin and taught to migrate to Florida.

The Texas cranes had an excellent breeding season in 2005 in the Wood Buffalo National Park in the Canadian Northwest Territories, where 54 nesting pairs fledged a record 40 chicks. Most of them were old enough to fly by mid-August, enabling them to escape predators and migrate to Texas. A record 33 (birds of the year) arrived at Aransas this winter.

And they had a good year in Texas too, in 2005, as high rainfall and abundant flowing freshwater have increased the number of blue crabs, their favorite food (although they also eat snakes, snails, rats, and other creatures).

Historically, fossil records suggest that Whooping Cranes have existed for several million years, and once lived from the prairies of Alberta, Canada to central Mexico.

Even though 2005 was a very good year for the Whooping Crane, sadly 2 males were shot that year, in November, while migrating through Kansas. They were quickly discovered on the ground. One died within a week. The other had surgery to repair a broken wing, and was then flown to the Patuxent Wildlife Research Center in Maryland, where it subsequently died due to respiratory problems related to its injuries.
With a population of 470 birds, even though considerably more than before, every bird matters.

An excellent book referring to cranes, including those of Japan, is entitled "The Birds of Heaven - Travels with Cranes" by Peter Matthiessen, with paintings and drawings by Robert Bateman.