The Blue Crane
(Anthropoides paradisea)

The lovely and elegant blue cranes are also known as the paradise crane or Stanley crane. Like the demoiselle cranes, blue cranes spend little time in wetlands, preferring, instead, to feed and nest in dry, grassy uplands. Blues have short bills and, rather than probing like most other cranes, they feed primarily on above-ground resources like seeds and insects.

They generally nest in high elevation grasslands, where there is less disturbance. During the winter, these cranes move down mountains to lower altitudes. Some blues prefer to nest in agricultural areas and do not use natural vegetation.

Most crane species possess red patches of scaly skin on their heads which they use extensively in during threat displays. Blue cranes, along with their close relatives, the demoiselles, do not have these red patches, but possess head feathers which are erected when they are excited and aggressive. The long dark feathers trailing to the ground behind these birds are tertial feathers of the wing, not tail feathers. (Tails are very short on cranes and usually not visible unless the crane raises its wings.)

Most crane pairs leap and pirouette when dancing. While blues also leap and bow, most of their dance consists of the two birds running together with the female in the lead. The chase is often interrupted by the excited birds as they stop and call.

Range: Southern Africa, with 99% of its population living in South Africa.

Status: The blue crane is the most geographically restricted of any crane species. Most of the world's 12,000 to 23,000 blue cranes live in southern Africa. A few semi-desert areas boast stable or increasing blue crane populations.

The blue crane is the national bird of South Africa and while this provides official protection, laws are difficult to enforce and often sometimes ignored. Blues are sometimes poisoned deliberately (by farmers trying to protect crops) and accidentally (when the cranes eat poisoned bait intended for other species, or after routine dusting of crops). Closely associated with grasslands, blues are sometimes victims of large afforestation projects which convert prime habitat into commercial tree plantations. In some areas of their range, populations have plummeted by 90% in just 10 years.

Growing human populations also place greater demands upon the environment as more acreage is converted to agriculture. Some blue cranes are captured and used as pets. Only a few of these cranes nest inside of protected areas, so the future of this crane is largely dependent on private landowners. These factors have given the blue crane the dubious distinction of being perhaps the most endangered of all cranes.

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THE SONGS OF THE BLUE CRANE.

(from African Sacred texts)

1. It is the Blue Crane's story which it sings; it sings(about)its shoulder, namely, that the"krieboom" berries are upon its shoulder; it goes along singing--

The berries are upon my shoulder,
The berries are upon my shoulder,
The berry it[1] is upon my shoulder,

[1. Its name is one; they (the berries) are numerous; its name is (still) one. The"krieboom " berries are many; the name of the berries is one. It appears as if its berry were one, (but) they are many.

The word |gara is the same in the singular and plural, viz., |gara (or |gara tsaXau) a !kwai, "one |gara berry," and |gara (or |gara tsaXaiten) e |Ukwaiya, " many |gara berries." The |gara is a part of the ||na, or"krieboom", the berries of it, as far as I can understand. They are said to be round, white, and "hard" (i.e., they have something hard inside them). The outside flesh is sweet. They are eaten by the Koranna.and the Bushmen. The women go to the "krieboom", pick the berries, put them into a bag and take them home to eat, first mixing them with other berries. They do not eat them unmixed, on account of their teeth, as they fear that the sweetness of the berries might otherwise render their teeth unfit to chew meat well.]

The berries are upon my shoulder.
The berries are up here (on its shoulder),[1]
Rrru are up here;
The berries are up here,
Rrru are up here,
Are up here;
The berries Rrru are put away (upon)it(its shoulder)."

2.

(When running away from a man.)

A splinter of stone which is white,[2]
A splinter of stone which is white,
A splinter of stone which is white.

3.

(When walking slowly, leaving the place [walk of peace].)

A white stone splinter,
A white stone splinter.

4.

(When it flaps its wings.)

Scrape (the springbok skin[3] for) the bed.
Scrape (the springbok skin for) the bed.

Rrrru rrra,
Rrru rrra
Rru rra!

[1. ||kabbo cannot explain why the berries do not roll off; he says that he does not know. This is a song of the very old people, the "first" old people, which was in his thoughts.

2. ||kabbo explains that the bird sings about its head, which is something of the shape of a stone knife or splinter, and has white feathers. He says that Bushmen, when without a knife, use a stone knife for cutting up game. They break a stone, knocking off a flat splinter from it, and cut up the game with that. The Grass Bushmen, ||kabbo says, make arrowheads of white quartz points (crystal points, as far as could be understood).

3. The Bushmen make beds (i.e., skins to sleep on) from the skins of springbok and goats.]