Demoiselle Crane – Anthropoides virgo

Hula re-flooded area – February 2009

All images copyright of Jonathan Meyrav

Early February 2009 - During his work on Common Cranes Grus grus Itai Shanni found an adult Demoiselle Crane in the cranes feeding area.

The Demoiselle Crane was quite approachable and kept to the edge of the huge Common Craneflock for the duration of its stay.

Demoiselle Crane is a rare passage migrant in Israel. There have been more records in the past few years, with the bulk of the records coming from the Hula.

On Friday 13 Feb I met up with a gang of 7 birders to watch and photograph the bird.

We rented the mobile hide for a three hour slot, geared up and entered the feeding area. After only 15 minutes we located the bird and had great views.

We spent the following two hours admiring and photographing the elegant bird.

It is a beautiful adult in breeding plumage and its majestic dress feathers were gently flapping in the morning wind.

It was a remarkable morning, besides the Demoiselle Crane we saw five species of Eagle and hundreds of water birds, worth noting were an adult Steppe Eagle and a clean unmarked 1t year White-tailed Eagle.

Needless to say we all filled our memory cards and I personally finally caught up with this elusive beast and I could not have wished for a better encounter.

The bird was present at the Hula till at least February 20th.

Enjoy the images, more to come from the field very soon.

Good birding.

Jonathan Meyrav    

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