The Wintering Behaviors Of Black-necked Grus At Mashu, Yunnan

From October 2009 to March 2010, the wintering behaviors of black-necked grus(Grus nigricollis) were observed.at Mashu, yunnan. We arrive habitely before 6:30 in the morning and before 18:30 in the evening. The time, both of leave and return to the roost site, of family cranes are recorded early than the clusters cranes. In the fin weather, family cranes began to fly at average time (7:34±0:10) five minutes earlier than clusters (7:34±0:12), six minutes in cloudy day; At night began to return at the average time (18:56±0:17) nine minutes earlier than clusters (19:05±0:19), 7 minutes in cloudy day. The comparation shows that the family cranes"keep always early hours"than clusters at the time both of leaving and return to the roost site.Wintering behaviors and the daily cycle of Black-necked Cranes were observed with instantaneous and scan sampling methods. During the wintering period, with the puepose of getting wintering energy, black-necked cranes spent most of their time to feed, which was about 52.48±5.59%. Other behaviors such as vigilance, searching, maintenance, walking, flight, and fight were 19.85±3.64%, 10.84±2.24%, 9.24±6.41%, 2.79±0.66%, 2.56±1.63%, 1.45±0.48%, 0.43±0.28%, respectively. The wintering behaviors of Black-necked Cranes in the daytime (09:00-18:00) showed a regular, specially two feeding peaks in the morning and afternoon, with one maintenance peak at noon.To observe the behavior of brooding in the family cranes with two adults and baby crane during the whole over-wintering (6 November 2009 to 2010 March 17). The whole over-wintering is separated into three stages: early (November - 12 months), medium (January - early February) and late (mid-february - march). with focus animal sampling, compared the time distribution between young cranes and adults, found in each period in daytime (by 1h as the unit) both of the two adults spend much less tine on feeding than baby cranes, but much more on warning. The feeding peak of baby crane and the nearest adult (recorded as crane 2, another as crane 1) is at 10:00-11:00, the proportion of feeding time of crane 2 is (50.53±17.15) %, lower than baby crane (68.09±12.20)%; the peak of crane 1 [16:00-17:00 (37.07±16.44)% ] is only half of the baby's. The alert peak [16:00-17:00, 58.58±18.70)%] is three times of baby's (21.53±11.39) %. In the mid-winter, the proportion of distribution of feeding behavior of each family member is the highest, and lower in the early and late. The proportion of crane 1 feeding is (30.61±14.61)% in early and (32.76±14.46)% in late, are 1/3 less of daytime, and baby's feeding proportion is more than half in the two periods, (56.20±19.20)% and (56.00±20.21)%. But the proportion of alert of crane 1 (54.97±17.36)% is 4 times than baby's (12.80±7.73)% in this period.Throughout the over-wintering, the matched cranes spend nearly half of daytme (48.72±6.15)% on feeding, above 1/3 (35.23±3.46)% on alert. Feeding behavior has obviously two peaks, morning and evening, lower during 12:00-15:00; keep alert frequently and stablely during the whole day. From early to late winter, the distance between cranes tend to be closer, the distance less than 3m (< 1-m and 1-3m) account for 75.0% in the early, combined to late this value rise to 86.1%; But reversed more than 3m (3-10m and > 10m), down from 25.9% to 15.33%.