News

Hello Crane fans

Hello Crane Fans

Great news to start the year with.  The 2021 breeding season resulted in 15 fledged juveniles joining our Somerset flock.  An excellent outcome and beyond expectations.  The  young cranes are still with their parents and observed regularly settling in to their environment.  Another first is that none of the originally released birds went missing last year.  That is certainly a relief.  The Annual Report is now uploaded to the website under the 'News' tab and you can read all the details there. 

All too often in nature conservation, stories are full of doom and gloom; highlighting species in steep decline. However, today is World Wetland Day and I thought it would be a great opportunity to celebrate a real conservation success story; the return of common cranes to the UK. Following the natural recolonisation of a few birds in 1979 and extensive conservation work, including a reintroduction programme, they are making a return after a 400-year absence. 2020 was a record year, with a total of 64 pairs present; of which, up to 56 attempted to breed and fledged 23 young.

In his last blog Damon talked about his recent visit to Brandenburg in Germany which is the area where the crane eggs that are brought to Slimbridge come from so the Great Crane project has very important links with the team and area out there.

Hi - My name is Michael and I have just started an 8 month secondment as the Somerset Wetlands Community Officer. I have been working as the Information Officer for the RSPB at the Arne nature reserve in Dorset. It's is a very different place to Somerset and I have been used to working with heathland species like smooth snakes rather than cranes.

In the last couple of days there has been a great deal of excitment at WWT Slimbridge. Two of the four birds which have been visiting the WWT reserve reguarly in the last few months have started to show signs of nest building! We are exceptionally lucky that they have chosen to do this right infront of one of the bird hides so we can watch the process without disturbing them!

A very excited Amy King has just sent some amazing news from WWT Slimbridge, where she has been watching cranes from the Great Crane Project building a nest in front of one of the bird hides!  Amy will post more details and photos on the website as soon as she can, and meanwhile you can follow her updates on our project Facebook page.

Just finished interviewing for Radio 4's 'Saving Species' programme due to be aired tomorrow -

Tuesday 8th June - at 10am

The crew were almost as excited about the project as I am....and it really brought home to me how soon the imminent move to Somerset will be.   I'm off up to Slimbridge tomorrow to help out and am very excited to see how big these chicks have grown over the halfterm week -  More pictures of big cranes to follow!

To celebrate the hatching of the first chicks as part of the project, Rod Fender of Black Forge Art has  donated this fabulous weathervane to The Pensthorpe Trust.  This now sits proudly on top of the visitor centre at Pensthorpe, where almost as soon as it was put up, a ‘fly past’ of two wild cranes took place!  Tim Nevard, said: “Although

Now all 24 little critters have hatched and the eldest are over three weeks old, everyone has really started to notice the development of individual characters in the chicks. There is a real difference between the smallest, being no taller than the top of our ankles, and the largest, reaching up to our knees!