Black Necked Crane Festival Tour in Bhutan

The Black-necked Crane Festival convenes each November 12 in the courtyard of a 16th century temple, the Gangtey Monastery. Children dressed in crane costumes perform beautifully choreographed crane dances will thousands of people enjoy the show. High in the skies over the mountains, cranes are circling to lose altitude as they return to a valley where their ancestors have likely has been visiting for thousands of years.

Bhutan is an important wintering ground for the stately Black-necked cranes, one of the world’s most threatened cranes. Each year, Phobjikha valley plays host to more than 230 threatened BNC adding another precious intrinsic value to its rich bio-diversity. It is now a known feature that the cranes fly every year to Bhutan around the third week of October. The local folks with the onset of winter having minimum work mark the arrival of the “Thrung Thrung” in the valley as a time for leisure.

They stay in the valley until around the first week of March foraging for bamboo tuber, insects, grains etc. The number of these Black-necked Cranes is declining every year. This is because of the drainage of their marshy habitat in some places and recent changes in traditional farming methods which have resulted in reduced availability of food for the cranes and partly because of the threats in their breeding areas. Total protection is given to the cranes in Bhutan and there are wardens at their main wintering areas in Phobjikha valley and at Bumdiling. The Royal Government has ensured that the cranes are undisturbed in Bhutan.

The Black-necked crane is important in local folklore and there are myths, legends and songs about the bird. The cranes are famous for their spectacular and beautiful dances in which they bow, leap into air and toss vegetation about whilst uttering loud bugling calls.