Crane dances are just one of many striking spectacles to be found in nature. Italian composer Ludovico Einaudi wrote a piece titled “The Crane Dance” that reflects the intricate courtship dances of cranes. And with a bit of luck it’s possible to see cranes in Shanghai.

A flock of less than 100 hooded cranes arrive in Chongming Dongtan National Nature Reserve every October. They stay for the winter and leave in March.

The hooded cranes, a species designated as vulnerable by International Union for Conservation of Nature, are safe within the nature reserve, which was established in 1998. The reserve joined the East Asian-Australasian Migratory Shorebird Nature Reserve Network the following year.

On the eastern end of Chongming Island in the Yangtze River estuary, the nature reserve has four parts forming a semicircle outside the seawall. It covers an area of 241.55 square kilometers and accounts for 7.8 percent of Shanghai’s total wetlands.

The nature reserve is an integral part of the migration routes of the cranes, water fowls and shorebirds in east Asia. Approximately 1 million migratory birds stop annually at Chongming Dongtan.

Ma Qiang, who heads the reserve’s science and technology information department, has been at the forefront of observing and protecting the birds in the wetlands. He complies various research projects and surveys on birds and plants in the reserve.

“The data for just one year may not seem so important, but after five years, 10 years, they reflect the existing problems,” said the East China Normal University graduate who majored in ecology.

Ma is busiest in the spring, when he and his colleagues are in the field most days. In the summer the researchers sort through the data. They conduct surveys on migratory birds in the winter. This entails tracking the birds in the reserve at least twice a week.

“Monitoring the cranes includes observing changes in their behavior,” said Ma, who has worked at the reserve since 2005. “They used to stay in a mudflat area but now they are more commonly found on farmland.”

While the researchers are unsure of why the cranes made the switch they believe the birds can find food easier on the farmland.

They have also noticed that if the farms change their crop planting patterns then the cranes don’t come.

“Chongming is one of the homes of hooded cranes. Many people don’t know you can see wild cranes in Shanghai. It’s the only place to spot them along the coast,” he said, adding that somewhere between 400 and 600 hooded cranes winter at Shengjin Lake in Anhui Province.

An unsolved mystery among the researchers is where the hooded cranes in Chongming come from and where they breed.

“We would very much like to know where they come from,” Ma said. “We can only guarantee their safety here, we don’t know where they live in the summer. And if something happens during their migration, we wouldn’t know either.”

Cranes are known for their fluid movements, which have inspired several styles of kung fu including being the fifth of the “Five Animals” martial art that originated in Shaolin Temple.

They also tend to be very vigilant and thus tagging some for tracking is hard. Ma says getting within 100 meters of a crane is extremely difficult. Wu Wei, a researcher at the reserve since 2008 with a PhD in animal ecology, says the main threat to the hooded crane population is loss of habitat.

“For migratory birds, their summer and winter habitats are relatively safe but the greatest threat is the stops along the route,” Wu said.

The population of hooded cranes in Chongming has remained stable over the years. Every year the flock wintering at the reserve is around 100.

While this seems like good news, it raises concern among researchers, Ma said. Cranes live an average of 60 years and there are both adult and young birds in the flock.

“Having nearly an identical number every year is not very optimistic,” he says. “On one hand it means they are not disappearing, but on the other hand with newborns every year, the number isn’t increasing.”

Ma and his colleagues also work closely with organizations from other countries like the Australasian Wader Studies Group.

“The efforts of one single country isn’t enough to protect migratory birds since,” he says. “We all need to communicate and work together.”

The nature reserve has built an education center that organizes activities to teach the importance of nature reserves, migratory birds and habitat protection.

Known for their beauty and gracefulness, cranes have long inspired artists around the world. Painter Shen Quan (1682-1760) is known for his “Pine, Plum and Cranes” painting that featured two red-crowned cranes.

Giuseppe Castiglione (1688-1766), an Italian Jesuit who became a painter, is perhaps best known for his work “Cranes Among Flowers.”

As for the crane dance, males are known to lift their wings up high over their back. They then step, leap, run and flap their wings elegantly in order to impress females. Somehow everything always seems to be about sex.