Land struggle between humans and red-headed cranes
With scientific name Grus antigone, the red-headed crane is a rare bird of Gruidae family. It has high value and is unique both aesthetically and biologically. Now, the red-headed crane is strictly protected by the law on environmental protection and law on biodiversity preservation by the international community, including Vietnam.
One outstanding characteristic of red-headed cranes is their height. When standing, they can reach 1.8 metres, and are considered the tallest flying bird in the world. All the body is grey while the head is red, a contrast which makes them easy to recognize from a distance. It has black primary hair and wing; bare hair at head and neck; red head and red skin on the neck; flecked on wing and grey tail; blue sinciput and beak; and red leg. Chick cranes have darker feathers. These instantly recognizable characteristics make the red-headed crane seem like a living fairy tale, flapping its wings.
Red-headed cranes mainly live in the Indian subcontinent, Southeast Asia and Australia. Its natural environment is wetlands, ponds, lakes and estuaries. In Vietnam, most red-headed cranes live in melaleuca forest with much space and Eleocharis atropurpurea in Tram Cham National Park in Tam Nong district, the southern province of Dong Thap, and wild fields in Kien Luong district, the southern province of Kien Giang. Sometimes, they appear in Lang Sen Nature Reserve in the southern province of Long An, in Khop forest in Yordon National Park in the Central Highlands province of Dak Lak, and in Lo Go – Xa Mat National Park in the southern province of Tay Ninh.
The diet of red-headed cranes is varied. They can eat coarse food in swamps and swallow waters such as roots, bulbs, insects, crustaceans and several small animals. However, their favoured food is Eleocharis dulcis. In early months of the dry season on the Mekong Delta, when water level goes down, masses of Eleocharis dulcis appear in large spaces of the melaleuca forest. At that time, red-headed cranes often return to feed on this food as a rule to form bird’s ecology for a long time.
In the wild, red-headed cranes often mate for life and stay in one place. It is said that when a crane dies, its partner will never mate with another crane. Some even starve themselves to death in this situation.
The breeding season of red-headed cranes is often in rainy season in northern Cambodia. They usually pick up branches of trees, canes and dried grasses to make reliable nests in cane-brakes in the wetlands, carefully protected from enemies. Each season, mother cranes lay one or two eggs. Each egg is about 240 grams and is chalk white. These eggs will be incubated by mother or father cranes for 27 to 35 days. When there is signs of danger, the cranes can hide the eggs in dried grasses and canes. They often eat the egg shells after the baby crane hatches. Chicks will be carefully weaned in their first months. Even when they can fly, they are still not separated from their parents in the first years. They will gradually practice their skills to find food with the help and instruction from their parents, travelling to wild lands like Dong Thap and Kien Giang provinces in Vietnam.
Although it is not technically a migratory bird, in fact red-headed cranes often take long trips to seek food and water, especially when it is dry. They often sleep in shallow waters to avoid danger from predators. Adult cranes do not moult their feathers every year like other birds, their feathers moult every two or three years.
We listen to the piercing birdsong in the early morning, silver cranes’ wings spreading to shine in a corner of the sky, loving couples dance, small families that are seeking food under the guard of the biggest one. What a wonderful natural picture.
