Scarlet Crane

Description

Scarlet Cranes are large birds, named for a patch of red bare skin on the crown, which becomes brighter in the mating season. Overall, they are snow white in color with black on the wing secondaries, which can appears almost like a black tail when the birds are standing, but the real tail feathers are actually white. Males are black on the cheeks, throat and neck, while females are pearly gray in these spots. The bill and legs are slaty to grayish black. They typically measure between 4' 10" and 5' 2".

Range and Habitat

Scarlet Cranes are found exclusively in a single part of the Blessed Isle, the Imperial River basin, where they are relatively common on the banks of the Imperial River as it flows through Juche Prefecture, Pangu, and the Scarlet Prefecture into the Imperial Bay, whose ancient poetic name is 'the Bay of Cranes'. Their range is also ideal habitat for the White Crane, but the two species do not get along, the larger Scarlet Cranes driving off their cousins when encountered.

Diet

Scarlet Cranes have a highly omnivorous diet. They eat rice, parsley, water plants, carrots, reed buds, acorns, buckwheat and a variety of water plants. Among animal matter, they have been recorded as eating several types of fish close to the surface, including carp and goldfish as well as eels and other fish. Frogs, salamanders and their tadpoles are also eaten with some regularity. They will also opportunistically eat snails, crabs, dragonflies, waterfowl ducklings, other small birds and small mammals. They seem to prefer animal food matter where possible.

They typically forage by keeping the head close to the ground, jabbing the bill into mud when something edible is encountered. When capturing fish or other slippery prey, they may quickly jab in a similar fashion to a heron. Although animal prey can be swallowed whole, usually a Scarlet Crane tears up prey by grasping with its bill and shaking it vigorously, eating pieces as they fall apart. Most foraging occurs in wet grasslands, cultivated fields, in shallow rivers or on the banks of larger rivers.

Cultural Significance

Tradition on the Blessed Isle holds that the Scarlet Crane's head was transformed to its current colour as a blessing from the Scarlet Empress herself, a tale discouraged by the Immaculate Order. Many peasants on the Isle believe that a red feather from the head of a scarlet crane is thought to bring good fortune... as the red of the crane's head is actually bare skin, no such feathers exist, but con artists make small fortunes selling dyed red feathers to foolish peasants in areas distant from the bird's range. Adherents of the Immaculate Order sometimes use 'feather of the scarlet crane' to refer to the Cult of the Scarlet Empress... which, venerating an Exalt who has no divinity nor right to worship, is as false and illusory as ar ed feather from a Scarlet Crane. The bird itself is an unofficial symbol of the Empress, and appears on the one-koku note of Imperial Scrip.