Sergey Dereliev

Widely distributed at northern latitudes across Eurasia, common cranes used to winter in Iberia and North Africa, the Middle East and the Nile valley, and further east in northern India and southern China. The species migrates in families and formation mainly at night, with a few traditional stopover sites along the routes. The nominate subspecies breeds across Europe, while subspecies archibaldi is extralimital, breeding in eastern Turkey and the Caucasus.

Season of assessment

B

Population trendIncreasing
Population size
(min-max, best estimate)		309000-423000,362000
Red List categoryLC
Franks, S., Fiedler, W., Arizaga, J., Jiguet, F., Nikolov, B., van der Jeugd, Ambrosini, R, Aizpurua, O., Bairlein, F., Clark, J., Fattorini, N, Hammond, M., Higgins, D, Levering, H., Skellorn, W., Spina, F, Thorup, K. Walker, J., Woodward, I. and Baillie, S.R. (1) (2022) Online Atlas of the movements of European bird populations. https://migrationatlas.org EURING/CMS (1) Principal investigator
Map

Overall Connectivity for Common Crane

Ringing recoveries identify three main routes for European cranes moving to their winter quarters. The main streamflow links all countries North and Central Europe to central Iberia via eastern France, in a NE-SW direction (Alonso et al. 2008). A secondary route links birds from the North to Hungary, with no further information on their final destination. Finally, a few Finnish and Swedish birds wintered in northern Israel, but this represents a small proportion of those cranes (Ojaste et al. 2020). There are several available tracking studies from Germany, Lithuania, Sweden and Russia (Nowald 2010). The major route from Scandinavia and Baltic states is over northern Poland and Germany, to reach eastern France in a straight line to the western Pyrénées, to winter in Central Spain. A secondary route for Baltic birds passes by Hungary before heading W, south of the Alps to fly over eastern Pyrenean passes. Russian birds from Moscow and further East moved southward over Crimea and Georgia to winter in northern Israel and Iraq, even Iran.

Recoveries by Condition for Common Crane

The very few pre-1960 recoveries are of dead birds, but modern records concern 99% of live recoveries of colour-ringed individuals. Also, 99% of recoveries have been obtained since the 1990s. So the information reported from ringing recoveries concern live birds from the latest three decades.

Annual Movements for Common Crane

The autumn migration over passage dates at passes in the Western Pyrenean passes advanced by three weeks during recent three decades (Filippi-Codaccioni et al. 2011), while the wintering in eastern and south-western France also increased dramatically, illustrating a recent change in the migration strategy of the species. As cranes migrate in familial groups, there is no sex- or age-specific patterns.

Connectivity by Month by Region for Common Crane

Birds from Central, East and North Europe start to move southward in late September, and mainly during October, arriving in Iberian wintering grounds before the end of the month, though many recoveries are from stopover sites along the flyway, while some birds do winter in Central Europe. The northward migration starts at the end of February, with movements noted up to northern Spain, with recoveries in eastern France mainly in March and until early April.

Frédéric Jiguet

References

Statistics Map
N records N individuals N recoveries
Mapped data*
Total available data
*Mapped data include only distant (>= 50 km) recoveries
References Map
Alonso, J.A., Alonso, J.C., Nowald, G.2008 . Migration and wintering patterns of a central European population of Common Cranes Grus grus. Bird Study 55: 1–7
Filippi-Codaccioni, O., Moussus, J.-P., Urcun, J.-P., Jiguet, F.2011 . Advanced autumn migration of the Common Crane Grus grus over Western Pyrenean passes. Acta Ornithologica 46: 37–45
Nowald, G.2010 . Colour marking and radio tracking of Common Cranes Grus grus in Germany and Europe – an overview. Vogelwelt 131: 111–116
Ojaste I, Leito A, Suorsa P, Hedenström A, Sepp K, Leivits M, Sellis U, Väli Ü2020 . From northern Europe to Ethiopia: long-distance migration of Common Cranes (Grus grus). Ornis Fennica 97: 12–25

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