It has a loud trumpeting call, higher-pitched than the common crane. Like other cranes it has a dancing display, more balletic than the common crane, with less leaping.
The demoiselle crane lives in a variety of different environments, including desert areas and numerous types of grasslands (flooded, mountain, temperate and tropical grassland) which are often within a few hundred metres of streams or lakes. However, when nesting, they prefer patchy areas of vegetation which is tall enough to conceal them and their nests, yet short enough to allow them look out for predators whilst incubating their eggs.
In Khichan, Rajasthan in India, villagers feed the cranes on their migration and these large congregations have become an annual spectacle.
Congregation of cranes in Khichan, Rajasthan
Demoisselle Crane.jpg
The demoiselle crane is evaluated as Least Concern on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. It is one of the species to which the Agreement on the Conservation of African-Eurasian Migratory Waterbirds (AEWA) applies.
The demoiselle crane is known as the Koonj (कूंज, کونج, ਕੂੰਜ) in the languages of North India, and figure prominently in the literature, poetry and idiom of the region. Beautiful women are often compared to the koonj because its long and thin shape is considered graceful. Metaphorical references are also often made to the koonj for people who have ventured far from home or undertaken hazardous journeys.
The name koonj is derived from the Sanskrit word kraunch, which is a cognate Indo-European term for crane itself.[2] In the mythology of Valmiki, the composer of the Hindu epic Ramayana, it is claimed that his first verse was inspired by the sight of a hunter kill the male of a pair of demoiselle[citation needed] cranes that were courting. Observing the lovelorn female circling and crying in grief, he cursed the hunter in verse. Since tradition held that all poetry prior to this moment had been revealed rather than created by man, this verse concerning the demoiselle cranes is regarded as the first human-composed meter.[6][dubious – discuss]
The flying formation of the koonj during migrations also inspired infantry formations in ancient India. The Mahabharata epic describes both warring sides adopting the koonj formation on the second day of the Kurukshetra War.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Photos and videos Acrotiri 29/8/2016 by George Konstantinou
Photos and videos Acrotiri 9/4/2022 and 13/4/2022 by George Konstantinou
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