TRANSLATED BY MARTIN KELSEY
After the successful experience of last winter 2012/2013 (see link) the Extremaduran crane enthusiasts have started a new census programme for the 2013/2014 season. Indeed, this time round, they have succeeded in promoting a national crane census, which took place in December 2013, the results of which have not yet been fully compiled. As a starter, we can provide briefly the figures for Extremadura. The second regional census results from 23-27 January are still pending, which will give us an overall more complete picture. Once the data are ready, we will publish a more detailed posting about the wintering crane population in Extremadura in 2013/2014.
Each
cenus brings new record figures
for this species. The
final result for December 2013 was 128,
820 cranes counted, 29,515 in the provincia de Cáceres-Tajo
basin, 82,532 in the Central Zone (see
link) and
16,773 in the rest of Badajoz province.
It is worth noting that within the Cáceres province census figures
there are three roosts with about 7,500 birds that lie inside the
territory of Toledo. In the national survey results, they will be
treated as such, but given that these counts are undertaken in a
coordinated way by observers from Cáceres, at the regional scale
they are considered as part of the Extremadura total (as has been the
case previously). Indeed, cranes
have no borders. Compared
with the previous census of December 2012,
using the same methodology and similar effort, the
result is 29,000 more cranes.
In the Tajo basin of Cáceres the population has risen by 8,000
birds, despite the Brozas sector (with 1,500 more cranes) only
getting partially surveyed, in the Central Zone there were some
20,000 more, and in Badajoz province about a thousand more cranes.
