Happy New Year

Wintering cranes

I always had the idea that, for wintering, cranes  need large, undivided open areas and this is the reason why their number in Italy is always very low. As a matter of fact agricultural Italian areas are fragmentized by roads and fenches, with buildings and other kind of humane presence. However when I was in the Hula Valley (Israel) some days ago I was really surprised of the incredible number of wintering cranes (more than 40.000 individuals!). That lowland area looks pretty similar to several agricultural areas of Italy where cranes are always scarce. It is true that in the Hula Valley farmers feed cranes for turists and for productive reasons but I don't think it's enough to explain the huge difference in number between Middle East and Italy. For sure biogeographical reasons interact with food availability in explaining the winter distribution of this amazing species since the Middle East is the first area with available habitat south of Caucasus and the mountainous areas of Kurdistan, excluding the desertic and semi-desertic areas of Syria. In any case it has been impressive to observe tens of thousands of these birds moving at sunset and flying just over my head.