Bird Research News

Vol.4 No.1

Hooded Crane

2007.1.12.

Nabe-zuru (Jpn) Grus monacha

Morphology and classification
Classification: Gruiformes Gruidae
Total length:
Tail length:
Tarsus length:
Weight:About 100cm
160-190mm
200-230mm♂ 3280-4870g

Wing length: 480-530mm
Culmen length: 93-107mm

Life history
12wintering
period34

56migration

7breeding

891011 12migration

Breeding system:♀ 3400-3740g

Total length after del Hoyo (1996) and the others after Kiyosu (1978).

Appearance:

Hooded Cranes are monogamous. It is assumed that once they
have paired, they usually maintain the pair-bond. When a partner
died, however, the bereaved one sometimes mates with anotherbird again.

Male and female are similar in plumage coloration.
They have an area of bareskin on the forehead. Theskin exposed above theeye is red, but the other isblack. They are charcoal
gray all over except for
the area from the head tothe nape, which is white.
They have tan bills andblack legs. The iris of apupil is deep orange orred.
In young birds, however,
the exposed skin on theforehead is not distinct Photo 1. Hooded Crane.
and the part from the headto the nape is tinged with dark brown.

Age of the first breeding:

Vocalization:

Incubation period:

Hooded Cranes utter a shrill call that sounds like "Kuwah, kuwah"
in flight. Whereas exchanging calls between mates sound moreclearly like “Kurrr”. The juveniles call in a penetrating voice like"Peep, peep".

Males and females are sexually mature at the age of about threeand five years, respectively, but unpaired females do not lay eggs,
even if they are mature (Ellis et al. 1996).

Nest:
There is no detailed information about the nest, but the size is assumed to vary greatly from one bird to another. There seems to bea nest with a diameter of several meters and a height of one meter.
The study of Fujimaki et al. (1989) showed that they built a nest ata height of 15-20cm above the water. The diameter of a nest wasabout 60cm at the top and about 90cm at the bottom. The base of anest was composed of sphagnum moss and sedge, on which deadreed and sedge leaves were densely laid, along with larch branches.

Egg:
The clutch size is two eggs and the egg size is about 97.0mm by
61.0mm.
The incubation period is 27-30 days. Both male and female basically incubate their eggs in turn, but the female stops incubating
two or three days before hatching.

Migration:

Distribution and Habitat
Distribution:
The main breeding grounds of Hooded Cranes are Khabarovsk andYakutsk, southeastern Russia, but they are also confirmed to breed
in south of central Russia and in Russian border region with northeastern Mongolia. There is a record of their breeding in northeastern China. There is a possibility that they breed in northern Mongolia as well. The non-winter visitors are occasionally observed in
the northeastern to the western part of Mongolia during the breeding period (Ellis et al. 1996，Ozaki & Baba 1994). Approximately
80-90% of the world population winters in Izumi, Kagoshima
Prefecture, southern Japan. There is also a record of their wintering in Kumage region in Yamaguchi Prefecture, western Japan.
Several to a few dozen birds are temporarily observed every winterin the other areas of southwestern Japan. Apart from Japan, they
are known to winter in Suncheon Bay, South Korea and the estuary of the Chang Jiang River, Jiangxi, China.

Habitat:Hooded Cranes breed in the marshland enclosed by forests, particularly in small-scale marshland with groves or bushes. They
select a sphagnum swamp surrounded by woods and bushes as anest site and do not nest in open places like reedbeds (Fujimaki etal. 1989). In the wintering period, they spend the daytime in paddy
fields, cropland and rivers, and as a roost they use bare sandbanks
of a river as well as water-flooded rice paddies. In China, they alsoroost in shallow areas of a lake, and in southern Korea they use
mud flats of the innermost area of Suncheon Bay.

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♪ http://www.bird-research.jp/1_shiryo/koe/nabezuru1_071201_izumi_kaji.mp3
Kyoko Kajimoto

The migration route of Hooded Cranes was studied using the satellite transmitters. They were tracked in the autumn migration fromDaursky Nature Reserve, south-central Russia and the spring migration from Izumi, Kagoshima Prefecture, southern Japan (Fig.
1).
Hooded Cranes tracked from Daursky Nature Reserve headed eastfor Jilin, northeastern China. After stopping over in Jilin, they flew
south to the estuary of the Hwang Ho River along the coast of theEast China Sea. Afterstopping over in the estu5 0 0 1 0 0 0 Km0ary, they took an inlandcourse and moved straightto Lake Poyang, where
they spent the winterDaursky（Higuchi et al. 1994).
Hooded Cranes trackedfrom Izumi, on the other
hand, headed north for theMundok
Sanjiiang Plain, China
through the wetland on thewest coast of the KoreanIzumi
Peninsula and the demilitarized zone between
Lake Poyang
North and South Koreas.
After stopping over in theplain, the crane traveledalong the Amur River toarrive at the breeding Fig. 1. Flyways of Hooded Cranes
grounds of Russia. The
tracked by satellite
study showed that theBird Research News

Vol.4 No.1

2007.1.12.

© Japan Bird Research Association
Sumiyoshi 1-29-9, Fuchu, Tokyo, Japan
Hooded Cranes spent about 30-40 days traveling about 3,0004,000 km from the wintering site of Japan to the breeding groundsof Russia. After they arrived at the breeding grounds, they did not
move a long distance (Higuchi et al. 1992).

Diet and foraging behavior
The diet consists of animal matter, such as fish (loach, etc.), amphibians (frogs, etc.), crustaceans (crabs, prawns, etc.), shellfish(mud snails, etc.) and insects (locusts, dragonfly larvae, etc.) as
well as vegetable matter, such as cereals and roots. They feed bypicking up food from the ground or thrusting the bill into the soil
to obtain food.

Topics of ecology, behavior and conservation● Concentrated distribution of cranes
Hooded Cranes wintering 12,000
in Izumi, Kagoshima
Hooded Crane
Prefecture represent about 10,000
White-naped Crane
80-90% of the world pop8,000
ulation, which is not afavorable situation for 6,000
them at all. Cranes havewintered in Izumi since 4,000
the Edo period (17-19thcentury). They were des- 2,000
ignated as a national mon0
ument in 1952 and theirfeeding started the following year. The number of Fig. 2. Numbers of Hooded Cranes andcranes wintering in Izumi
White-naped Cranes wintering inIzumi. Y axis: birds, X axis: year.
has begun to increasesince and more than
10,000 cranes including White-naped and Sandhill Cranes havevisited Izumi every winter for the last ten years.
Therefore, the local agriculture has suffered direct damage to crops
as well as indirect damage, such as the destruction of a ridge between paddies and the concentration of crows foraging for the foodfor cranes. In addition, the local fishery has also suffered direct
damage to farmed seaweeds from ducks concentrating in paddy
fields flooded as a crane roost.
The outbreak of a contagious diseases is concerned because a large
number of Baikal Teals died of poultry cholera in South Korea in2000 and Black-faced Spoonbills died of botulism in Taiwan in
2002. It is suggested that Hooded Cranes carry a high risk of becoming extinct because infectious diseases spread swiftly among
them when they are concentrated in such a small area as Izumi.

● Project to disperse wintering cranes from Izumi
It is necessary to develop other wintering grounds and disperse
cranes from Izumi to reduce the agricultural damage and the riskof extinction due to an epidemic of infectious diseases. The current
issues on the wintering cranes has come to be understood in otherareas than Izumi and Kumage (another important winteringground) in recent years, and efforts to invite wintering cranes havestarted.
In Imari City on the migratory route of cranes, for instance, thecity authorities have carried out a project with the cooperation of
the citizens to secure a safe habitat and attract cranes by setting out
their decoys and replaying their calls (Photo 2). So far one familyof White-naped Cranes has stayed there every winter. In Nakamura City, Kochi Prefecture, Shikoku, on the other hand, efforts has

バードリサーチ生態図鑑
been made to improve thehabitat for cranes using a
farming method of multinatural type. Several dozen
cranes visit there every winter,though they do not staythroughout the winter yet.
Cranes stop over in the otherprefectures of Shikoku as welland a crane information network has recently started to beestablished between this city
Photo 2. Decoy of Hooded Cranes atand other stopover sites.
Nagahama reclaimed land, Imari,
The wintering ground ofSaga.
Suncheon Bay has been designated as a sanctuary in South Korea. The number of winteringcranes has increased from about 150 birds at the end of 1990s tomore than 200 birds. In addition, the stopover site of the Nakdong
River valley, Gumi City that several thousand cranes use while on
migration is also planned to be a sanctuary. Much is expected fromthe future developments in South Korea.

Literaturedel Hoyo J., Elliott A. & Sargatal J. eds. 1996. Handbook of the birds of the world.
Vol.3. Hoatzin to Auks.Lynx Edicions, Barcelona.
Ellis D. H., Gee G. F. & Mirande C. M. 1996. Cranes: Their Biology, Husbandry,and Conservation. Hancock House Publishers. USA.
Fujimaki Y., Hanawa S., Ozaki K., Yugi O., Nishijima F., Kharbryi V. K., Shibnev
Y. V., Starikov R. B. & Tpikov S. V. 1989. Breeding status of the Hooded CraneGrus monacha along the Bikin River in the Far East of the USSR. Strix 8: 199217. [J+E]
Higuchi H., Ozaki K., Golovuskin K., Goroshko O., Krever V., Minton J., Ueta M.,
Andronov V., Smirenski S., Ilyashenko V., Kanmuri N. & Archibald G. 1994.
The migration route and important rest-sites of cranes satellite tracked fromsouth-central Russia. The Future of Cranes and Wetlands: pp15-25. Wild Bird
Society of Japan.
Higuchi H., Ozaki K., Fujita G., Soma M., Kanmuri N. & Ueta M. 1992. Satellite
tracking of the migration routes of cranes from southern Japan. Strix 11: 1-20.
Kiyosu Y. 1978. Great Reference of Japanese Birds II, Revised edition with supplement. Kodansha. Tokyo. [J]Ornithological Society of Japan. 2000. Check-list of Japanese Birds Revised. The
sixth edition. [J+E]
Ozaki K. & Baba T. 1994. Recoveries and Resightings of Color Banded HoodedGrus monacha and White-naped G. vipio Cranes in North-east Asia. The Futureof Cranes and Wetlands: pp32-40. Wild Bird Society of Japan.
Languages of literature cited other than English: [J] in Japanese, [J+E] in Japanesewith English summary.

AuthorYasuhiro YAMADA Wild Bird Society of JapanMy relationship with cranes began when I got a job in the Wild Bird
Society of Japan in October 1999 and carried out the study of cranes
wintering in Suncheon Bay of South Korea. Currently I am engaged ina project to attract cranes toImari City, Saga Prefectureand working hard to get themto winter in the city with thecooperation of the local people. I found myself in a situation where I had to put on acrane costume at the Bird
Festival.

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