Two Siberian Cranes preparing for flight at the Yellow River Delta National Nature Reserve in Shandong Province, China on Dec. 22, 2018. Picture provided by Jiangxi Provincial Wildlife Rescue and Breeding Center.

Yesterday evening (India time), I received a message from the editor that our submission has been accepted for publication in the journal “Emu – Austral Ornithology.” This journal is Australia’s foremost source of scientific information on birds, and it is not easy to get work published here. Wooo–hooo!!

One of the greatest joys of my life with cranes is friendship with others who share such passion for these special birds. My colleagues at the Institute for Biological Problems of the Cryolithozone (permafrost) – IBPC in Yakutia, Russia, Drs. Nikolai Germoganov, Inga Bysykatova and Masha Vladimirtseva have been such friends for many years.

I last visited Myanmar (then Burma) in 1986. Since that time, Myanmar has broken out of military isolation and is developing rapidly. The bicycle-filled streets and small shops of Rangoon have given way to a major urban metropolis, now called Yangon. I returned to Myanmar this summer with our Southeast Asia Program Coordinator Dr. Tran Triet. Over the last few years, we have been developing a new Sarus Crane program with our Myanmar colleagues, including experienced birders and conservationists Myo Sandar Winn and Ko Lay Winn, who joined us for the entire trip.

A pair of Black-necked Cranes dancing at their nest site. Photos by Li Fengshan

The Black-necked Crane is an iconic species of the Tibetan plateau, with almost the entire global population nesting in high-altitude wetlands in China. Ruoergai, in Sichuan province of southwest China, is one of the breeding strongholds of the species where the International Crane Foundation has been working since 2009.