Common cranes in the Drömling wetland in Germany

© Mike Friedrichs/Getty Image

Birds of the Drömling

Common cranes (aka Eurasian cranes) often gravitate to wet open fields, bogs, and marshes. This flock is congregating in the Drömling wetland in Germany. The most widely distributed of all the 15 species of cranes, its native range covers a wide swath of Europe and Asia, with the largest breeding populations in Russia and Scandinavia. As winter approaches in the northern hemisphere, common cranes make the long journey south, often in large flocks of about 400 birds, to northern Africa and parts of southern Europe and Asia in search of more civilised temperatures.