Braaksma S. (1957) Pleisterplaatsen van Kraanvogels, Grus grus L., in Nederland. ARDEA 45 (3-4): 143-167

An inquiry concerning the migration of the Crane (Crus grus L.) in the Netherlands has been made by the Department for Nature Conservation of the State Forestry Service, with the assistance of several Dutch amateur ornithologists. This inquiry shows that in the Netherlands only 10 to 20 localities are left which migrating cranes use to stay at night or even during several days. The number of Cranes staying on those roosting and feeding areas usually varies from some tenths to several hundreds. The roosting and feeding areas occur during 1956 as in former years, especially in the eastern parts of the Netherlands (maps 2, 3 and 4). The Cranes there evidently prefer the larger heath and moor areas, at least in autumn. Only in two or three localities Cranes regularly visit cultivated areas. Probably in most of the cultivated grounds in the Netherlands the disturbance is too great for the birds, which in this country usually behave very shyly, although they are protected all the year round. Food-questions very probably do not have any influence on the choice of the roosting areas, Cranes not being very selective in their food and feeding habits. Owing to reclamation of moors and heath areas at least three important former roosting and feeding areas disappeared not long ago. One of them, 'De Vredepeel' near St. Anthonis on the border of the provinces Noord-Brabant and Limburg, probably was the most important roosting and feeding area of the Cranes in the Netherlands up to 1940. The former moors are cultivated now, mostly for agricultural purposes. At present the Cranes almost totally avoid their former favourite roosting area, where they used to stay every autumn in numbers totalling a thousand or more birds. It is feared that at least two more of the still existing roosting and feeding areas at the Limburgian border are in danger of being reclaimed in a very short time. They are destined for cultivation. The founding of protected areas of undisturbed 'Crane-reserves', large enough to assure the necessary rest and enough food is therefore urgent. Probably it will be the only way to preserve not only for the Netherlands but for Western-Europe as a whole the population of may be some thousands Cranes which pass through this country.