-- Rated as critically endangered on the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List, the Siberian white crane only numbers around 4,000 globally, with just a single migrating route left for them on the planet.

-- Chinese researchers first discovered the Siberian white cranes in Poyang Lake in 1980. Now, about 98 percent of such cranes spend their winter in Poyang Lake.

-- In December 2021, China's Jiangxi Poyang Lake National Nature Reserve Administration signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on strategic cooperation with Russia's Kytalyk National Park for better protecting and monitoring the birds.

NANCHANG/MOSCOW, Feb. 7  -- Trofimova Iuliia could not help humming the Russian song "Cranes Flock" when she saw Siberian white cranes dancing less than 20 meters away by Poyang, China's largest freshwater lake.

The Russian student studying in East China Jiaotong University, Jiangxi Province, is from Siberia, where about 70 percent of such cranes start their migrating journey from the Kytalyk National Park to China.

Undated photo shows Siberian white cranes at the Five Stars Sanctuary by the Poyang Lake in Nanchang, east China's Jiangxi Province. (Xinhua)

DRAMATIC CHANGES ON MIGRATING ROUTE

"Like Siberian cranes, I flew from Russia to Jiangxi over 5,000 km. They came to survive the winter and I came to study," said Iuliia.

Rated as critically endangered on the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List, the Siberian white crane, also known as the snow crane, only numbers around 4,000 globally, with just a single migrating route left for them on the planet.

"The Siberian white crane is alert by nature. If it has been disturbed in one place, it will never go there again," said Guo Yumin, an expert on crane protection at Beijing Forestry University.

According to Guo, Chinese researchers first discovered the Siberian white cranes in Poyang Lake in 1980. Now, about 98 percent of such cranes spend their winter in Poyang Lake.