Red-Crowned Crane

        Red-crowned crane is also called mythical crane, which is one of the rarest category among the 6 categories cranes in Qiqihar Zhalong Natural Reserve. It's a national Class I protection animal, whose body is slim (body length is above 1.3 m). It's white all over except the throat, neck and the back end of remex are black, which set off the vermeil caruncle on its head. It's handsome and energetic and it almost gathers all favorable features of cranes and has become theme for men of letters, artist and craftsman. Its appearance feature is “red crown and red eyes” (as described in “Florilegium”), thus it's named as red-crowned crane. Its crown skin is bared, which is dark red and black of Class II and III remex. Its remexes drop down to cover its tail while standing. Its eyes are brown, its mouth is green and its feet are black. It behaves gently and cultivated, and it could fly into the sky with scream reaching far away of the field. Therefore, it's treated as the auspicious symbol.

        Red-crowned crane is the City Bird of Qiqihar with very high viewing values. The propagating places of red-crowned crane are distributed in the Songnen Plain in Three-River Plain of China, Far-East of Russia and Japan, etc. Red-crown crane lives through the winter in southeastern coasts of China, the lower reaches of Yangtze River, Korean bay and Japan, etc. Zhalong Natural Reserve is also called “Hometown of Mythical Crane”, which is the main propagating place for red-crown cranes and many other cranes. The Xibo people living in the northeast often draw picture of cranes on their altar for sacrifice of ancestors.

        Red-crowned crane is a water fowl inhabiting in swamps, which almost inhabiting at the shallow area of the swamp where reed grows. It has no web between its feet fingers and belongs to wader migratory bird. They fly northward from the south where they lived through winter around vernal equinox each year with family as unit; they will scream and dance after arriving at Zhalong Natural Reserve to look for spouses, and then occupy their respective domains and collect grasses by mouths to make their nests. The diameter of their nests is around one meter, which is 15-30 cm from the water. They will lay eggs in the middle of April, the volume of their eggs is larger than goose egg, with brown spots on.

        It's said that the current Zhalong Natural Reserve was once a piece of saline-alkali land in the remote antiquity period. There was only a very small village on this vast land with dozens of households living dispersedly. The villagers could not grow crops for the barren soil and they were making a living hardly by burning soil alkali.

        One day, high wind suddenly swept the village, the black clouds covered the sky and the sands and stones were sweeping around. Half hour later, the clouds disappeared and the wind ceased, the sky was blue in a sudden, the sun was as scorching as fires, and then a huge monster fell from the ground with sorrowful wails. The villagers felt so frightened that they all shut off their doors and windows. At that moment, a brave and strong man with sir name of Xu went out to have a look with a crabstick in hand, and he found a gigantic dragon falling into the dry ground. The villagers went out to have a look one after another after hearing the message, and they saw the eyes of the gigantic dragon were as big and bright as beads, the two horns of the dragon were highly erected, the sharp dragon claws deeply pawing into the dry ground, the dragon body was hundreds of meter long, and the body was as thick as an old elm tree trunk that several people could not hold with their arms and the body was covered by scales as big as dustpan. That gigantic dragon was deep in tears, while struggling in waving its head and tail but failed to fly and it desperately looked into the sky. An elderly man with white hair told the villagers, “dragon is a water-dependant deity, which could benefit the people by making rain, please put up canopies and pour water onto the dragon as quick as possible and save it”. Then the villagers gathered a lot of wood poles and quilts to put up a huge shelter for the dragon, and they carried clean water afar to pour onto the dragon. However, because the weather was too hot, the scales on the dragon started to fall off. All the villagers were very nervous and in tears.

        Later, the heavenly “Birds Immortals” were moved by the kind people, and they sent the red-crowned crane to fly to the world leading white cranes, white-headed cranes, white-naped cranes, grey cranes, demoiselle cranes, swans and throngs of birds. They were spreading their wings over the dragon to shelter for the dragon to summon wind and rain. A few days later, the thick clouds covered the sky, the lightning and thunder came, and suddenly the storm poured down and the flood was coming in a sudden. The gigantic dragon flew high into the sky after getting water. And then the gigantic dragon bowed its head and knocked its head down three times with its body bent and claw raised to show thanks to those villagers who saved its life. The villagers saw the gigantic dragon off by cheering and jumping.

        The average temperature of Qiqihar City is from 0.7 to 4.2 °C, the temperature difference between south and north is around 3.5°C. The yearly average frost-free period is from 122 to 151 days. The yearly radialization amount is from 110 therm/cm 2 to 120 therm/ c㎡, which is similar to the middle reaches area of Yangtze River, the radialization amount during growth period (May to September) is from 65 therm/cm 2 to 67 therm/ c㎡ .

        The yearly sunshine duration is from 2600 to 2900 hours, and the sunshine duration during the growth period (May to September) is from 1300 to 1350 hours.

        The yearly rainfall is from 400 to 550 mm, the rainfall during the growth period is normally from 350 to 480 mm, which is above 85% of the yearly rainfall.