I'm afraid I don't know, hopefully someone else can clear this up. A Tsuru google search seems to suggest that they're the Japanese cranes in origami, which I presume are the same thing. Does anyone know if the name has anything to do with Tsurui (important breeding ground)? I've not come across 'welcome bird' before, but a google image search shows a large number of common crane photos. Can anyone clarify any of this?
tsuru is the Japanese name for the crane (and thus also for the origami crane as well). I don't know about the "welcome bird" part though. They symbolise several things such as peace and gracefulness, so I suppose "welcome" could fall in there as well. Also it may be to do with migration (i.e. returning to certain spots every year at specific times).
The reason I ask is my partners family business was importing Japanese injection moulding equipment and traveled to japan a lot on business in fact they called their house Tsuru after the crane which is also apparently called the welcome bird, as Tsuru means welcome in Japanese as well.
