HIGH FLYERS

      The elegant bar-headed geese and graceful demoiselle cranes are the highest flying birds on Earth.  On migration, both species pass through Himalayan passes, over those mountains themselves and over the Tibetan Plateau, vocalizing all the while.  The geese pass over the Himalayas in spring and fall between their summer nesting territories and their wintering grounds.  But the cranes fly over the Himalayas only during their autumn migrations from their summer to winter homes.  Both these large, majestic species are impressive and inspiring because of their ability to ascend to 26,000 feet and above when on migration.  They have adapted to cold, and reduced oxygen in the thin air at that altitude.  

     The stately bar-headed geese winter in India and Pakistan, but raise young in colonies in short-grass habitats near wetlands and other waters in the Tibetan Highlands of Mongolia and China.  The dainty-appearing, but tough, demoiselle cranes winter in India and northeast Africa, and hatch offspring in short-grass habitats near water in Asia, from the Black Sea to Mongolia and northeast China.  Both species ingest grass seeds and cereal grains.  The geese also consume grass shoots, while the cranes eat invertebrates.    

     Both these kinds of hardy birds are handsome.  The geese have light-gray feathering, orange-yellow beaks and feet, white heads and two black bars of feathers that wrap behind the neck from eye to eye.  The three-foot tall cranes are the smallest of their kind in the world.  They have pale, blue-gray feathering on top, flowing, dark-gray plumes on their throats, dark heads and a thin, white plume of feathers from each red eye to beyond their necks.     

     It's estimated there are fifty to sixty thousand bar-headed geese alive today.  Each female of the nesting pairs annually lays three to eight eggs in a grassy nest on the ground.  

     One hundred and seventy to two hundred and sixty thousand demoiselle cranes are estimated to exist presently.  Females of each breeding pair of them usually lay two eggs each year.  Each lovely crane pair dances together to tighten the bond between them with graceful jumping, bowing to each other, and vigorous flapping of wings.  

     Golden eagles are these birds' most formidable predators.  The eagles catch some straggling birds of both kinds while the geese and cranes migrate.  And the eagles pick off young birds during the nesting season, in spite of the parent birds' best efforts to defend their progeny.  

     Bar-headed geese and demoiselle cranes are impressive birds in appearance, and in their ability to migrate long distances at high altitudes.  All life does what it must to survive as long as it can.    

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