Grus vipio

White-naped Crane is a large wading bird with no subspecies.

White-naped Crane mainly feeds on plant seeds, grass roots, young leaves, young shoots, grains, fish, frogs, lizards, tadpoles, shrimps, mollusks and insects. When feeding, they mainly use their beaks to peck, or use their beaks to first open the surface soil, and then peck at the seeds and rhizomes buried underneath, pecking as they walk. They spend most of the day foraging and are very alert. They usually look up and look around after pecking a few times. If disturbed, they will immediately avoid or fly away.

Except for the breeding season, when they move in pairs, white-naped cranes mostly move in family groups or small groups, and occasionally they are seen moving alone. During migration and wintering, they mostly move in large groups consisting of several or more than 10 family groups. They are alert in action and fly when they see people from a distance. When taking off, they first run a few steps on the ground, then take off. When they fly to a certain height, their necks and feet are stretched forward and backward respectively, and their wings flap vigorously, making them fly lightly.

The white-naped cranes begin arriving at their breeding grounds in late March in spring and continue until late April. In autumn, they begin to leave their breeding grounds and migrate to their wintering grounds in late September and continue until early to mid-November. They migrate in family groups or small groups consisting of several family groups.

The breeding season of the white-naped crane is from May to July. It is a monogamous system. When arriving at the breeding grounds in late March, they mostly move in pairs or family groups, and the male bird occasionally shows courtship behavior. When courting, the male bird excitedly runs and jumps back and forth beside the female bird, with its wings half-open or fully open, accompanied by the loud "kou-kou-kou" calls. If the female accepts the male's courtship, she will sing and dance, then spread her wings and squat, and the male will jump onto her back to mate; if the female is indifferent to the male's courtship or walks away, the male will stop the courtship performance.

Nests are built in reed marshes or water grass marshes, with a water depth of 10-30 cm, sometimes up to 80 cm. The male and female birds build the nest together, with the female being the main one. The nest is shallow and mainly composed of dead reed grass, moss, sedge and reed flowers and leaves. The size of the nest is 80-120 cm in diameter, and the height of the nest above the water is 7-16 cm. Territoriality is very strong, and male and female birds express their possession and protection of the nest area by singing, patrolling and chasing in the nest area. The territory size is 4.5-6.5 square kilometers, and the average distance between nests is 2683 meters. The earliest egg laying starts in early April and lasts until late May. One nest is produced each year, with two eggs in each nest. The eggs are oval, gray or lavender, and covered with purple-brown spots, especially at the blunt end. The size of the egg is 90-98 mm × 56-63 mm, with an average of 92.9 mm × 60.9 mm, and weighs 150-205 grams, with an average of 167 grams. After the first egg is laid, the incubation begins, which is shared by the male and female parents, with the female being the main one. When incubating the eggs, the other bird often forages for food and keeps watch near the nest. The parent bird incubating the eggs is also very alert, often sticking its head out to watch. If it is slightly startled, it will quietly come down from the nest and suddenly take off after walking 50 meters away from the nest, making it difficult to find the nest. It usually flies to a higher place 300 meters away from the nest to peek, and only flies back to the nest to incubate the eggs after the intruder leaves. The incubation period is 29-30 days. The chicks mature early and can stand and walk on the day they hatch.

Listed in China's "National Key Protected Wildlife List" (January 14, 1989) Level 2.

Listed in the "World Conservation Union Red List of Endangered Species" (IUCN) 2018 ver 3.1-Vulnerable (VU).

Listed in China's "National Key Protected Wildlife List" (February 5, 2021) Level 1.

Listed in Appendix I, Appendix II and Appendix III of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) 2019 Edition Appendix I.

Protect wild animals and stop eating game.

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It breeds in Qiqihar, Heilongjiang, China, the lower reaches of the Wuyur River, the Sanjiang Plain, Xianghai and Momoge in Jilin Province, and Darinor Lake in eastern Inner Mongolia; it winters in Duyang Lake in Jiangxi, Hongze Lake in Jiangsu, and Caizi Lake in Anhui, and is occasionally seen in Fujian and Taiwan; it passes through Liaoning, Hebei, Henan, Shandong and other provinces during migration. It breeds east of Lake Baikal in Russia, all the way to the Ussuri region in the Russian Far East, and winters in North Korea and Japan.
White-naped cranes live in open plain reed marshes and aquatic marshes, as well as on the banks of open rivers and lakes, and nearby marsh grasslands. They sometimes appear in farmland and bay areas, especially during the migration season.

The iris is dark brown, the beak is yellow-green, and the feet are red. The forehead, the front of the head, the front of the eyes, the sides of the head, and the skin around the eyes are bare, all bright red, with sparse black fluffy feathers on them. The ear feathers are smoky gray. The back of the head, the occipital, the back of the neck, the sides of the neck, and the upper part of the front neck form a dark gray stripe, and the cheeks and throat are white. The lower part of the sides of the neck and the front neck and the lower body are dark slate gray. The upper body is slate gray. The tail feathers are dark gray with a wide black horizontal stripe at the end. The primary flight feathers on the wings are black-brown with white feather shaft patterns, the secondary flight feathers are also black-brown with white bases, the tertiary flight feathers are light gray-white, extended into an arch, and the coverts on the wings are gray-white, the primary coverts are black, and the ends