New staging record, but few offspring

Last weekend all cranes were synchronously counted in the Darß-Zingst Bodden chain and island Rügen - with an incredible result. More than 86,000 cranes are currently feeding and resting in this region, preparing themselves for the next trip on their journey to the wintering grounds. Thus, autumn 2019 reached a new record in the abundance of cranes for the Darß-Zingst Bodden chain and island Rügen.

However, the incredible number of cranes masks the fact that the reproductive success was very low. The proportion of juvenile birds in groups of resting cranes is less than 5%. “If the trend of climate-induced low reproductive success will continue the population of cranes will decline again in the long-term”, says Dr. Günter Nowald, director of the NABU-Crane Center. “The exceptional high number of staging cranes is caused by a drop in temperatures in Scandinavia and good wind conditions. Thereby nearly all cranes of Scandinavia reached this region in enormous migrating waves”.

If you enjoy watching cranes we would like to welcome you at the KRANORAMA at the Lake Günz (daily opened between 09:00 am and 06:00 pm) and the NABU-Crane Centre in Groß Mohrdorf (daily opened between 09:30 am and 05:30 pm).