The Story
I photographed this Red-crowned Crane (Grus japonensis) at the Zhangye National Wetland Park in Zhangye, Gansu, China on March 28, 2018. Its migratory populations breed in far eastern Russia and Northeast China and winter on the Korean Peninsula and in east-central China. It is named for the patch of bare red skin on its crown, which gets brighter in the breeding season. It is snow white with black secondaries, which can look like a black tail when the bird is standing. IUCN lists the species as Vulnerable. The park lies along the Heihe, the second-longest inland-draining river in China, at about 1,440 to 1,470 meters above sea level.
I took this with a Pentax K-1 and the HD PENTAX-D FA 150-450mm F4.5-5.6ED DC AW, at 1/2000 sec, f/5.6, ISO 400. The wetland’s managers are working to restore habitat that farming and falling water tables have degraded.
©2018 Adam Rainoff Photographer
The bird
The Red-crowned Crane (Grus japonensis) belongs to the family Gruidae (Cranes) in the eBird/Clements taxonomy.
Source: eBird.org (opens in a new tab)
Conservation
Vulnerable on the IUCN Red List (assessment published 2021), with the population trend listed as decreasing. Source: IUCN Red List