Broodingbiotopes:

• silted up areas of lakes and ponds (from reed to alders)
• areas with low and high moors
• reeds and marshes
• damp or wet meadows
• small clearings and ponds located in forests
• left exploitationareas of peat
• more or less damp to wet lowlands with vegetation of different height, from treeless dwarf growthed shrubs and grassy areas to clearings in timber forests.

Brooding:

• Nest: Nest in scattered pairs. Usually on a dry ridge or eminence, occasionally built up in shallow water; the same site may be used in successive years. Nests are build by both members of a pair by sideways-throwing and sideways-building to produce large, low heaps of loose plant material. The nest varies from nearly any nest-material (on dry sites) over an area of flattened vegetation with scant additional material to a large heap of nearby vegetation.
• Breeding season: In the south begins in mid-April, in mid-range April to May, and in the north May to June (in the latest past some started at the beginning of march or even at the last days of february; one brood a year, single-brooded.

• Eggs:Usually 2, sometimes 1 to 3. Subelliptical to elliptical. Slightly glossy or glossless. Varying from blue-grey through buff and olive to reddish-brown, with spots or elongated blotches of red-brown, dark-brown or purple. 96,4 x 62,4 millimetre.
• Incubation: Eggs laid at intervals of 2 days or more. Incubation by both sexes, usually mostly by female with male on guard near by. 28 - 30 days, from the first egg on.
• Nestling: Precocial, and downy. Two down coats. First down warm rufous-buff, darkest on the back. Underparts paler and chin and underside whitish. Down basis dark brown. Second down short and brownish-grey. The bill is short and light brown. Legs pale olive-brown.
• Nestlingperiode: The youngs hatch in intervals of two days. Then both adults take care for them. They leave their nest after a few days and wander with their parents. Usually only one chick survives. Fed by parents on tiny items at first. Downy for four weeks, feathered by six weeks, independent at about ten weeks. They tend to remain with the parents after fledging until next spring.
• Mortality of nestlings and juvenils: The mortality extremely depends on abiotic conditions as water-level nearby the nests, the weather, disturbances, but also on the offer and availability of food. The mortality amounts about 0,5 juvenil per succesful pair.
• Enemies: Human beings, fox, wild boar, Raven, Carrion Crow and Marsh Harrier.
• Social behaviour: Within the scope of guarding pairs of breeding cranes in 1987 I (Otwin Franz) was able to make to following observation: 13:10 h to 14:05. Both members of the pair are looking for food on a meadow. After intensively observation only one chick could be find out. During the period of observation a deer disturbed the search for food of the two cranes. The male placed opposite the deer with a threatening gesture: the deer disappeared in a small wood in consequence. The female had set on the chick to warm it during the disturbance.