larger flock. In March and April, they begin their long spring journey back to their northern nesting grounds. In Khichan, Rajasthan in India, villagers feed the cranes on their migration and these large congregations have become an annual spectacle. The demoiselle crane is evaluated as Least Concern on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. It is one of the species to which the Agreement on the Conservation of African-Eurasian Migratory Waterbirds (AEWA) applies. In culture The demoiselle crane is known as the Koonj /Kurjan(कूंज,कुरजां کونج, ਕੂੰਜ) in the languages of North India, and figure prominently in the literature, poetry and idiom of the region. Beautiful women are often compared to the koonj because its long and thin shape is considered graceful. Metaphorical references are also often made to the koonj for people who have ventured far from home or undertaken hazardous journeys. The name koonj is derived from the Sanskrit word kraunch, which is a cognate Indo-European term for crane itself. In the ancient story of Valmiki, the composer of the Hindu epic Ramayana, it is claimed that his first verse was inspired by the sight of a hunter kill the male of a pair of demoiselle cranes that were courting. Observing the lovelorn female circling and crying in grief, he cursed the hunter in verse. Since tradition held that all poetry prior to this moment had been revealed rather than created by man, this verse concerning the demoiselle cranes is regarded as the first human-composed meter. The flying formation of the koonj during migrations also inspired infantry formations in ancient India. The Mahabharata epic describes both warring sides adopting the koonj formation on the second day of the Kurukshetra War. In Pashto this bird is called (Zaanray), like Urdu where koonj is used for beautiful person the Pashto word Zaanray also used for beautiful person. References External links eBird Species Factsheet Demoiselle crane at Animal Diversity Web Demoiselle Crane (Anthropoides virgo) from Cranes of the World (1983) by Paul Johnsgard demoiselle crane Birds of Central Asia Birds of Mongolia Birds of Central Africa Birds of East Africa demoiselle crane Taxa named by Carl Linnaeus Taxobox binomials not recognized by IUCN