A country will have many items that represent the country, such as China's national treasure giant panda, unique characteristics not only loved by China, but also by many people abroad. In fact, in addition to national treasures, national anthems, and national flowers, there are also national birds. Like many children' favorite flamingos are the Bahamian national bird, while the national bird of the United States is the bald eagle, and the national bird of Japan is the green pheasant. So what is China's national bird?
The national bird has a similar meaning to the national treasure and the national flower, and is a spiritual symbol of a country and a nation. Therefore, generally speaking, the birds that are selected as national birds are cherished by the people, precious specialties or important birds. The first country to be identified was the United States, which, six years after the Declaration of Independence on June 20, 1782, adopted a resolution establishing the endangered bald eagle, the bald eagle, as the national bird. It was also placed on the coat of arms of the United States, the bald eagle, a species endemic to North America. It is now increasingly protected by law, and it has become one of the important symbols of the United States.
In 1960, delegates to the International Conference on The Conservation of Birds called on countries around the world to elect their own national birds. At the same time, the idea of protecting birds was popularized among the people, and under the development, more than 12 countries in the world established national birds. Of course, there are also some countries that have two kinds of national birds, such as Australia and Iran, etc., and they have selected two kinds of national birds because of special circumstances.
China's national bird was controversial at the beginning, and 2003 was the first time that the national bird selection campaign was launched. The special red-bellied golden pheasant is used as the emblem of the Chinese Ornithological Society, and the red-bellied golden pheasant is unique to China and is mainly distributed in the Qinling region of Gansu and southern Shaanxi, China. It also has a nickname for the pheasant, I believe many people have seen it, but now it is relatively rare in the wild. But this is not the national bird, the red-bellied golden pheasant is expected to be selected, in addition to magpies, thrushes, but the magpie is already the national bird of South Korea at that time.
After several years of selection, the final one was the red-crowned crane, and the State Forestry Administration also reported the red-crowned crane as the only candidate for the national bird. The red-crowned crane is mostly white throughout and looks very dynamic and elegant. As its name suggests, the top of the red-crowned crane's head is bright red. As for why the top of the head is red, it is a bit funny, because it has no feathers on the head and there are a lot of capillaries under the scalp.
Simply put, the red-crowned crane is on top, and its head must be particularly cold when it stands in the cold wind. But although it is thankful, it is still quite beautiful. It also has a relatively long history in China, the Ming Dynasty and the Qing Dynasty have given it a cultural connotation of loyalty, purity and noble morality, and it has also become an important symbol second only to the royal dragon and phoenix, and it is on the clothes of a civilian official. The crane that the ancients have always said is the red-crowned crane, although it is not related to the pine tree at all, but the ancients often painted it with the pine tree as a symbol of longevity.
The red-crowned crane can be traced back too far in China's history and culture, and it is found on the lacquerware excavated from the Han tomb 2100 years ago. However , its choice as the national bird is controversial , as its translation in English and Latin is Japanese crane. It was only because Westerners first saw this animal in Japan that they named it the Japanese crane. The year of the name was the forty-first year of Emperor Gaozong's Qianlong Dynasty, and both Japan and China were actually closed to the outside world, and Westerners knew China from Guangzhou and Japan from Nagasaki.
However, red-crowned cranes do not pass through Southern China when they migrate, but they spend the winter in Kyushu and Honshu, Japan, so Westerners have seen this animal for the first time in Japan. However, by the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century, the red-crowned crane in Honshu in Japan was extinct, so some proposed that the Japanese crane be changed to the Manchurian crane, but this was not fully accepted. The chairman of the Crane Foundation said that he would change its English name to a red-crowned crane, but the Japanese crane is still the mainstream. Therefore, whether to choose a red-crowned crane has always been controversial, and it has not been selected until now.