EXTREME ENTRY: Canada [Yukon] 1906
Pringle, George C. F., Tillicums of the Trail: Being Klondike Yarns Told to Canadian Soldiers Overseas by a Sourdough Padre, McClelland & Stewart Publishers, Toronto,1922, Chapter XIV: A Moose Hunt.
We heard a strange noise coming from beyond the distant northern skyline of the river valley…. Soon the source of it appeared in the north. It was the advance guard of a great flight of sandhill cranes on their journey to the south coast…. I am not exaggerating when I say that they flew for two hours in a continuous, clamorous stream of arrow-shaped formations from our northern horizon, until they disappeared from view over the southern hills. There were thousands of them in that one contingent.
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China circa 1275.
Marco Polo (Henry Yule and Henri Cordier 3d Edition), The Travels of Marco Polo, 1920, Chapter LX: Concerning the Kaan’s Palace of Chagannor.
At the end of those three days you find a city called Chagan Nor … at which there is a great Palace of the Grand Kaan’s; and he likes much to reside there on account of the Lakes and Rivers in the neighbourhood, which are the haunt of swans and of a great variety of other birds. The adjoining plains too abound with cranes, partridges, pheasants, and other game birds, so that the Emperor takes all the more delight in staying there, in order to go a-hawking with his gerfalcons and other falcons, a sport of which he is very fond.
There are five different kinds of cranes found in those tracts, as I shall tell you. First, there is one which is very big, and all over as black as a crow; the second kind again is all white, and is the biggest of all; its wings are really beautiful, for they are adorned with round eyes like those of a peacock, but of a resplendent golden colour, whilst the head is red and black on a white ground. The third kind is the same as ours. The fourth is a small kind, having at the ears beautiful long pendent feathers of red and black. The fifth kind is grey all over and of great size, with a handsome head, red and black.
Status: Siberian White Crane is currently endangered in China.
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