Working with iCORA
Language selection
Before starting to work with your iCORA account, you have to select the relevant language. English language is pre-selected as a standard. If cookies are activated permanently, your language selection is stored by your internet browser.
Register and login
Before reporting a crane, you have to register. After registration you will receive an e-mail with an activating link for your account. After activating your account, you just need to enter your login data for the next visit.
With the button „Register / User account“, you can every time change your contact details or user password. Even your login name can be changed freely.
With the link „Choose co-observer“, you can edit your own list of iCORA users, which than can added as co-observers during new observation reports. For these co-observers, crane observations are directly linked and also stored in their accounts. The co-observers can watch the cranes even in their accounts and are also listed as co-observers in the life-history reports.
To add new co-observers in your co-observers list, please click into the input box and search the person, you want to add. While clicking on a person, that person will be added to your co-observer list. You can also search for specific persons, while typing their names into the input box.
Report ringed cranes
After the login you can immediately report ringed cranes. First select "Report ringed cranes" in the menu.
The map shows the site with your last observation. The map can be switched manually (press the left mouse button). Afterwards select the observation locality by a "click" into the map. The saved site information will be shown at the bottom right.
The input of the observation site can also be realized with the following options:
- Menu “input coordinates”: input with geographical coordinates (degree, minute, second)
- Menu “decimal coordinates”: input with decimal coordinates
- Search the site with “search places”: search by site name or postcode, the exact locality has to be chosen by clicking into the map
- Under the menu “crane places” the most important crane resting sites in Europe are preselected. The exact locality again has to be chosen by clicking into the map.
- Below the menu “crane places” the last 15 places with your own observations of ringed cranes can be selected
Press "further" to go on to the general information form. Please enter date (obligatory), time of the observation (in 5 minutes steps) and habitat information (site use and habitat). Depending on chosen habitat another submenu will be activated, which allows for more specific habitat information. Stubble fields should be reported as “field, harvested/stubble”. Winter crops should be reported as “field, cultivated, not ready to harvest”, while (freshly) ploughed fields belong to the category “field, ploughed/black field”.
Also information on the size of the flock, in which a banded crane was detected, is of great interest (please enter exact flock size or estimate a flock size class).
Another important point is the information of the "family size" of your banded crane/cranes, as here data about family relationships are stored. If there are several banded family members, iCORA needs the family size to make the next form and to save the family relations between the banded cranes. Please only change the standard approach “unknown”, if you are able to make reliable information about age and family status.
If you have one or more co-observers during your observation of a banded crane, those people can be entered under the menu “co-observer” one after another.
After entering the general information click “further to colour ring input”. Please click on a crane silhouette to enter colour ring information. The small silhouettes are for juveniles and the large ones for adult birds. In a first step you have to select the coding type, where “coloured legrings” is pre-selected. But you are also able to choose for “alphanumeric code” or “metal ring number”.
The colour combination can be entered as 6-digit number code or each color ring position can be entered with a select list. The colour code is numerically encoded as follows:
1 = white
2 = yellow
3 = red
4 = blue
5 = green
6 = black
7 = brown
E.g. 441342 means at the left leg blue-blue-white and at the right leg red-blue-yellow (read top down).
If you want to report a ring with alphanumeric code, you have to choose the colour of the ring in a first step and then please enter the ring inscription.
If you want to report a crane with a metal ring, please select the ringing center in a first step (if recognized) and then please enter the metal ring code.
If you observed the position of the metal ring of the ringing center on the crane’s leg, please add that information as well. This will help us to validate observation data and is sometimes needed to identify specific cranes, if colour combinations are incomplete or if colour combinations were used twice. Usually metal rings are used below the tarsus on the left or right foot. In Sweden, cranes are often ringed with a reddish eloxadized metal ring, either on the foot or as upper ring as part of the country code on left leg.
If you also recognized the colour ring type, please enter the information if the rings were ELSA rings (fully closed. completely imbued octagonal rings) or spiralrings. Spiralrings were used in former times and these rings can fall off or discolor (bleach). If you watch a crane with spiralrings, please always enter “spiralring” as colour ring type. This tremendously helps to validate such observations.
If eventually one or more rings are missing in a colour combination, please enter missing rings with a “-“ (minus) in the combination (e.g. -44521)
After entering the colour ring information and optionally some remarks, please click “further – take data”. Your data are not stored in our database yet, but you can check for correct information, add another banded member of the crane family or you can upload pictures of colormarked cranes.
If you have record pictures of a banded crane, you can upload up to two pictures per bird. Please click the camera symbol to select your pictures. Large pictures should be downsized before the upload. Pictures in jpeg-, png- or gif-format are supported.
After entering the data of all ringed cranes in a family, please press "Send data to iCORA". After that you get the information whether your crane is stored with ringing data in the database or not. If it’s stored in the database, you can watch or download (as pdf-file) the life history report of that crane under the menu "My cranes". If no ringing data are stored in our database, the crane might belong to a non- participating crane ringing project or your observation was eventually not correct. With the menu “My cranes”, such codes can checked as well, if further data with such colour code are stored in the iCORA database.
Report radio tagged cranes
Please only use to report option, if you have recognised a banded crane only by its radio tag. If you also have observed the colour rings of the tagged crane, please use the menu “report ringed cranes”.
After login you can immediately report radio tagged cranes. Select "Report tagged cranes" in the menu and mark your observation locality in the map with the blue iCORA ring. If you were able to make a cross bearing, please enter the place, where the tagged bird was found. For the input of the observation places, see the options under “report ringed cranes”.
Please press "further" to go to the report form. Please enter first date, time and place accuracy of your observation. The accuracy of place is set to 3.1 miles (5 kilometres) as a standard, because normally when you only heard the transmitter, the accurate position of the crane is unkown. If you are able to detect the crane in a visible crane flock, please change the “accuracy of place” into accurate to the given coordinates.
Then you can enter the first received frequency in field "frequency" and if necessary make some notes for us in the field "remarks". Press "+ add frequency" to add the frequency to the list of frequencies. Repeat this for all frequencies you received at this place. Use the trash symbol to delete incorrect observations.
If a tagged crane was detected at a roost site, please mark the option “at sleeping place” under habitat information. If the place accuracy was set to “accurate to the given coordinates”, you can enter additional information on site use and habitat.
If you have one or more co-observers during your observation of a banded crane, those people can be entered under the menu “co-observer” one after another.
After reporting all tagged cranes, then please press "Send Data to iCORA" and all your observations are forwarded to the iCORA database. After that you get the information whether your crane is stored with ringing data in the database or not. If it’s stored in the database, you can watch or download (as pdf-file) the life history report of that crane under the menu "My cranes". If no ringing data are stored in our database, the crane might belong to a non- participating crane ringing project or your observation was eventually not correct. With the menu “My cranes”, such frequencies can checked as well, if further data with that frequency are stored in the iCORA database.
My cranes
Under this menu option you can find the recorded information about the crane you reported or where you were set as an co-observer (or from which you are a goodfather).
Simply select a colour code or frequency from the selection list. To find a certain crane easily, you can filter the crane with the colour combination (numbers or letter combinations: W=white, Y=yellow, R=red, Bu=blue, G=green, Bk=black, Br=brown), the frequency of the tag and the name of the crane. Under the menu list, you will find also options to select for specific ringing centres or recovery dates. If you enter a date, only observations after that date are shown. With that option you easily can follow new observations of your cranes.
All recovery localities are displayed on a map. For cranes that belong to non-participating ringing projects, only observations are given, that were directly reported to the iCORA database. If a crane has no ringing data, all observations with the same colour ring combination or tag frequency are given. In the table on the right all previous reports are listed. If you choose one of these entries you will see detailed information in the map. Entries with a camera symbol have additional pictures and those with a binocular symbol mark your own observations. You can also filter the recoveries by selecting a specific year.
You can also zoom in the recovery map and by using the line symbol in the upper right corner you can create lines between single recoveries. The magnifier symbol allows you to zoom out automatically, that all recoveries of a bird are shown on the map.
My reports
Here you will find with all observations, which were reported with you as a main or co-observer. You can open details of your observation reports by clicking on the arrow at the beginning of each observation. To the right from the ID number you will find a letter symbol. After clicking that symbol a contact form is opened and you can contact us about your observations. If you found any mistake in your report, please use that contact form to inform us about wrongly reported observations.
You can sort this list by clicking the arrows in the header. You can also select observations from a specific time period, if you enter dates in the fields above the table. You can also filter your observations by entering specific values in the empty fields below the table.
If you like, you can also download all your observation reports by clicking on the csv-table symbol.
iCORA database
Here we provide you with some simple analysis and statistics from data stored in our database:
- Recoveries per year stored in the database
- Numbers of different cranes (ringed and tagged birds), observed per observer
- Number of ringed cranes per country, stored in the database
- Top10 list of the oldest cranes, reported during the last year
- Age class distribution of all living cranes stored in the database
- Largest distance between a ringing and a recovery site
- Number of recoveries per country
- Number of all recoveries in the database, grouped by distance between ringing and observation site (100 km)
Frequencies & country codes
Here you find a list of all country codes used so far by ringing projects of the Eurasian Crane and a list of frequencies of radio-tagged cranes. Frequencies are only listed, if the birds are not reported dead.
News & Gallery
Here you will find a gallery with pictures of colormarked cranes, as well as all news published on the main page.
Help & FAQ
Here you will find a detailed guidance to use the iCORA website.
Register & User account
If you are logged in as a user, your user data (contact details, login data) and your personal adjustments are visible. Here you can change your contact details, password and personal adjustments. Please note, that fields marked with an asterisk are mandatory.
Correction of wrong observations
All reported data are validated by the participating ringing projects. Therefore, after final forward of your observation to the iCORA database, data can’t be corrected anymore by yourself. If corrections are necessary, please contact us via our email ring@kraniche.de.
Additional information about the ringing and taggging of Eurasian Cranes can be found here:
