Damon Bridge's blog

..And even though I realise this wish might not be to everyone's liking - Here's to a lovely wet Spring 2018 - ensuring lots of nice safe nesting areas for the reintroduced cranes on the wetlands of the South West! 

  Flocking cranes - Somerset Autumn 2017 - John Crispin.

The autumn is producing some spectacular sights and sounds in Somerset as the cranes, much dispersed through the summer months, noisily flock together to forage across recently harvested barley and maize fields.

  Legend, Elle, and their chick in flight. Aug 23rd 2017.

The WWT Reserve at Slimbridge is currently proving a fantastic place to witness some pre-season strutting, posturing, and general crane shenanigans!

Keep an eye out - THURSDAY 26th JAN -  for some fabulous filiming at the West Sedgemoor Reserve.

Join Chris Packham and Damon on a mission to see the cranes come in to roost. 

Here it is on BBC i-Player 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b08c3ynm

DB

DATES FOR YOUR DIARIES!

A private, anonymous reward of £1,000 has been offered, ontop of the £1,000 offered by RSPB, for any information that leads to a conviction for the shooting of the crane, known as Swampy at the end of September this year.  Anybody with information should contact the Avon and Somerset Police quoting crime reference number 5216228321  

I have some very sad news to report.  The body of Swampy, a female crane, released through the Great Crane Project in 2011, was found by a local farmer in a maize field in late September.   The body was handed into the project team, and it was sent, as with any recovered dead crane, for a full post-mortem.   The post mortem found four embedded metallic objects by CT scan, one of which was located through examination and has been identified as gun-shot.  The conclusion is that the most likely cause of death was shooting.  The details hav

On a quiet, still morning a week ago, four conservationists hid, crouched in the grasses and obscured by hawthorn hedges as the morning mist formed in the first light of dawn. After a wait of around an hour, a pair of cranes and their eight week old chick crept steadily from their night-time roost, stealthily and nervously walking out of the thick cover of reeds onto a short drove road.  From here they walked much more quickly out into an open field, recently grazed, gleaning early-morning insect morsels from the rush tops.