Birds Without Borders: In flamingo land of Gujarat, sarus cranes keep singing their love songs

However, sarus cranes’ love for a company goes deeper in the wilderness too. Can you think of a couple who does not stay away from each other even for a moment? A couple for whom the absence of a partner makes them so uncomfortable and even melancholic. That is precisely how the sarus crane (scientific name: Grus antigone) is.

In Gujarati, such a couple is often referred to as Sarus beladu. Sarus cranes mate for life — they mate with the same partner every breeding season. Watching a sarus crane pair romancing and getting excited together is astonishing. They dance, jump, pull and play with weeds. The longer the weed, the more the excitement.

Sarus cranes are the tallest flying birds. (Credits: Jaitra Khambhati)

Sarus cranes bite their partner’s neck a little to excite them. Then one of the partners signals to the other by moving its neck up and down as if bowing down. Then, they start bowing together. After a few moves, the male picks a shorter weed to indicate to the female to enter into the next phase of their courtship dance. In return, the female plucks out a longer weed, gets excited, and starts jumping. Then they keep plucking longer weeds and jumping together for some time.

Moreover, they spread wings and do trumpeting calls during their courtship display, and such calls can be heard from quite a distance. They also dance when the babies are around. Looking at them dancing, the baby sarus tries to intervene. In their pre-courtship display, often other pairs join to dance in a group.

Sarus cranes eat grains, seeds, rice, snails, grasshoppers, fish and reptiles. (Credit: Jayendra Bhalodiya)

Sarus cranes are wetland birds that nest in paddy fields. In Gujarat, the rice fields of Anand, Kheda, and Ahmedabad are their favourite nesting sites. Due to their love for sarus cranes, farmers in this belt of central Gujarat feel comfortable with these majestic birds nesting in their fields. Their nests remain on the ground and contain wetland vegetation. Sarus prefers individual nesting with a lot of privacy and doesn’t like intruders.

Moreover, they look for plenty of water while selecting the nesting site. They usually lay two and sometimes three eggs. The hatching time is approximately one month. After that, young ones take three months to take their first flight. Once the babies are grown, they roam in a family. They socialise with other sarus cranes near wetland areas where they roost together. They eat and forage during the day and sleep at night.

Sarus cranes are large birds — five feet, eleven inches tall while standing, making them the tallest flying birds. Their wing span is more than two metres or more than six feet. The wing beats are stronger, making these birds mighty flyers. They fly with their neck and legs extended. Moreover, they fly together, quite close to each other. Their flight looks graceful with rhythmic wing beats and usually not too high from the ground.

Sarus cranes are grey in colour. Their neck, throat, face and nape are predominantly velvet-red with black fur on the neck and nape and white patches on the ears. Their lower neck and tail are white. The tail contains thick white feathers contrasting with the predominantly grey chest, belly, back and flight feathers.

Sarus crane is the state bird of Uttar Pradesh. (Credit: Jaitra Khambhati)

Sarus cranes eat grains, seeds, rice, snails, grasshoppers, fish and reptiles. The female looks smaller than the male in size. Usually, they are silent, but if one makes a call, the other responds.

The state bird of Uttar Pradesh, sarus cranes are found in other states too. In Gujarat, whose state bird is the greater flamingo, sarus cranes are common residents in the central region and some parts of the north and south. They are also found in Saurashtra and Kutch regions of Gujarat.

Folklores immortalise the love of sarus cranes by narrating that if a partner in a sarus crane pair dies, the other too dies by suicide by smashing its head to the ground repeatedly. Some people might have seen such behaviour, whereas others might have been telling such stories to protect these birds from being hunted.

The International Union for Conservation of Nature’s Red List categorises the sarus crane as a vulnerable species. Though sarus cranes live for three to four decades, their population is decreasing due to pesticides, flight collisions with overhead power lines, human intrusion in their habitat etc.

(Dr Jayendra M Bhalodiya is an assistant professor at Ahmedabad University. He is affiliated with Bird Conservation Society, Gujarat and Eco Friends Gujarat.)