Common Crane Grus grus 灰鶴
Category I. Accidental.
IDENTIFICATION
95-120 cm. Largely grey crane with black face and fore neck contrasting with white rear part of face and hind neck. Red on crown, browner mantle and long bulky tertials extending beyond the wings. In flight shows blackish flight feathers, rather square wings and habitually elongate head and neck, distinguishing it from Grey Heron. Juveniles have buff-tinged head that is rather plain; rest of plumage is paler and browner than adult.
VOCALISATIONS
The typical flight call is a loud and ringing ‘krru’ or ‘krrow’.
OCCURRENCE
The only record is of three at Mai Po on 30 October 1966 (Webb 1967).
There are unsubstantiated reports of up to ten in Deep Bay near Ping Shan on 2 November 1930, eight near Mai Po on 30 November 1930, five at San Tin on 27 October 1931 (Hutson 1931) and two near Ping Shan on 30 November 1931 (Aylmer 1932).
Kershaw (1904) referred to large flocks seen on the West River, western Guangdong in winter, and Vaughan and Jones (1913) saw one in flight near Ding Hu Shan, Guangdong in January. La Touche (1931-34) met with small flocks in winter near Shantou, eastern Guangdong.
RANGE & SYSTEMATICS
Monotypic. Breeds from Scandinavia and eastern Europe east across Eurasia to northeast Siberia. Winters to the south in southwest Europe, north and northeast Africa, the Middle East, northern parts of the Indian subcontinent and south China (Archibald et al. 2020). In China breeds in the northwest and northeast and winters in north and central parts along the Yellow and Chang Jiang (Yangtze River) floodplains, the latter as far as Yunnan (Liu and Chen 2020).
CONSERVATION STATUS
IUCN: Least Concern. Population trend increasing.
Archibald, G.W., C.D. Meine, E. F. J. Garcia, and G. M. Kirwan (2020). Common Crane (Grus grus), version 1.0. In Birds of the World (J. del Hoyo, A. Elliott, J. Sargatal, D. A. Christie, and E. de Juana, Editors). Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Ithaca, NY, USA. https://doi.org/10.2173/bow.comcra.01
Aylmer, E. A. (1932). Notes and Comments. Ornithology. Hong Kong Naturalist 3: 145-151.
Hutson, H. P. W. (1931). Notes and comments. Ornithology. Hong Kong Naturalist 2: 320-321.
Kershaw. J. C. (1904). List of birds of the Quangtung Coast, China. Ibis 1904: 235-248.
La Touche, J. D. D. (1931-34). Handbook of the birds of Eastern China Vol. 2. Taylor and Francis, London.
Liu, Y. and Chen, Y. H. (eds) (2020). The CNG Field Guide to the Birds of China (in Chinese). Hunan Science and Technology Publication House, Changsha.
Vaughan, R. E. and Jones, K. H. (1913). The birds of Hong Kong, Macao and the West River or Si Kiang in South-East China, with special reference to their nidification and seasonal movements. Ibis 1913: 17-76, 163-201, 351-384.
Webb, E. D. (1967). A collaboration of cranes. Hong Kong Bird Report 1966: 59.
