Kobrin district



Navigation

Tag cloud




Our partners

Fauna

GREY CRANE OF GRUS CRUS (LINNAEUS, 1758) OF SHERY ZHURAVEL

Number and tendency of its change:
Number in Belarus was sharply reduced in the 1960-70th years in connection with carrying out campaign for drainage of bogs, by 1980th years number was stabilized, and from 1990th years, perhaps, there is some growth of number. Number in Europe is estimated at 52-81 thousand couples, in Belarus - at 800-1500 couples and about 1000 not breeding individuals.

Habitats:
- bogs
- inundated woods
- inundated meadows
- fields

Major factors of threat:
- violation of the hydrological mode of bogs
- influence of adjacent meliorative systems
- peat fires
- a spring burning out of a grass on bogs
- illegal shooting

Protection measures:
The look is included in the Red List of Republic of Belarus since 1981. Preservation of large marsh massifs as wildlife reserves of nesting of a look. Optimization of the hydrological mode of the broken bogs by overlapping of drying channels. Suppression and prevention of poaching. Explanatory work about harm of a spring burning out of vegetation.

Description of a look:
Length of a body is 105-130 cm, wingspan of 200-245 cm. The mass of a male is 3,9-7,0 (5,3) kg, females of 3,8-5,4 (4,7) kg. A large bird of characteristic shape with a long neck and legs. Coloring of plumage of males and females generally gray. On a darkness red "hat" - a site of naked warty skin. Nape, lower part of cheeks, throat and forward part of a neck black. On each side the heads from an eye pass the wide white strips connecting on back side of a neck where gradually turn into gray color. Swing feathers and them the covering black. Steering feathers blackish-gray, over them hang black and gray long feathers with rassuchenny small beards. Legs are black, a beak brownish-gray. Young birds are painted more monophonically, in brownish-gray tone. Red "hat" on a darkness at them is absent.



Distribution:
The nested area stretches from the central part of Europe to the Far East and from a northern taiga to steppes of Asia. 2 subspecies are described. Winters in the southwest of Europe, in Africa, in the Middle East and in India. In Belarus meets everywhere in all biotopes, favorable for nesting.

Biology:
Flying and tranzitno the migrating look. The spring arrival of cranes occurs at the end of March - the beginning of April, and in early spring - in the middle of March. At once on an arrival separate couples occupy nested sites, notifying on the presence by loud shouts. The voice - loud pipe "clang", - is published as the sitting birds, and in flight. The nest is arranged usually in a water environment, both on an open bog, and under a canopy of the wood or among reed thickets. It represents the stamped, almost equal platform from dry stalks, branches, a grass and a moss, with a diameter up to 1 m. In a laying, as a rule, 2 eggs of the extended form, with average sizes of 95,2 × 60,3 mm, light-brown or greenish-gray, with rather thin drawing from indistinct brown and violet-gray spots. Otkladka of eggs begins in April or in the 1st half of May, the male and a female nasizhivat, serially replacing each other, within a month. The hatched baby birds are covered with brown down, for the second or third day of life leave a nest and follow parents. At the age of 2,5 months they already well fly. Before flying away form packs which several weeks keep near the area of nesting. Autumn flying away in September, can continue also all October in the warm fall. The crane - mainly herbivorous bird, eats young greens, seeds of herbs, rhizomes of some marsh plants, cranberry berries. In the fall on fields they often select the spilling grains of grain cereals. In a small amount in the spring and eat also animal food in the summer - large insects, small amphibians, lizards, etc.

Article from the Red List of RB


>