Abstract:From November 2012 to March 2013, the family behavior of Siberian Crane (Grus leucogeranus) was studied by focused observation methods at Poyang Lake National Nature Reserve in Jiangxi Province. The results show that the adults spent 80.9% of time budget for feeding, and alert, preening, walking, and other activities accounted for 10.5%, 4.0%, 3.9%, 0.7% of activity duration respectively. In early wintering period, the daily activity rhythm of adult crane presented two peaks in the morning and in the afternoon of their walking behavior, with the trough at 10:30-12:30 in the noon. In late wintering period, apparent feeding trough presented at 13:00-14:00 while peaks of alert, walking and preening at the same time. In early wintering and interim period, preening peak presented at 14:00-15:00. There was not significant difference of time budget between male and female. Percentages of adult Siberian Cranes'alert (F=3.45,P=0.040), preening (F=6.99, P=0.001) and walking (F=7.79, P=0.001) behaviors had significant difference among three wintering periods. Nevertheless, the time budget of juvenile cranes was different with adult cranes. The time budget percentages of juveniles were feeding 66.2%, begging 14.0%, alert 3.7%, preening 5.4%, walking 3.6%, and others 7.1%. As to the frequency of feeding the juveniles, male adults decreased gradually, and the female adults increased from November to early December, then decreased since mid-December. Throughout the wintering period, the frequency of the adult males and females feeding the juveniles had no significant difference (P=0.340), however, in medium (P<0.001) and late wintering (P=0.005) periods, it showed significant difference. With the growth of the juveniles, their time budget changed greatly; the percentage of feeding was significantly increased, while their begging was reduced greatly and alert also increased. Our work showed the gender difference of the behaviour of the adult Siberian Cranes, and importance of adults feeding on the growth of juveniles.