Pepper

Profile Picture and Leg Ring Combination Code

White
Green
White

What is this?

Each crane has a unique combination of 3 coloured rings on their right leg. This marking code helps to identify the crane in the wild.

Sex: Male
Date of Hatching (birthday): 27 April, 2011
Date of Release: 22 August, 2011
Tracking Tag: Radio tracking
Status: Missing since December 2013– presumed deceased.
Life Status: Deceased
Champion Status: Championed

Character profile:

June 2011: Pepper is Albert's sibling - but strangely does not exhibit the same coloured toe nails! He has formed a stable cohort with Charlie and B5. Pepper is a small bird, with a huge appetite! August 2011: Pepper had a strange hairdo for a while but has lost this and looks a lot smarter now! He does however lack some growth in his primary feathers. Half of them are shorter than the others so he is quite distinct from the other birds when he stretches his wings out. Pepper really likes to forage but has not developed any strong bonds with any other birds and will hang out with whoever is around. October 2011: Pepper had a pretty smooth release, but did have a week or so as a bit of a 'loner' - probably as a result of being under the weather. The young cranes need to pick up and deal with all kinds of bugs and nasties when coming to Somerset - all part of becoming a wild bird - and at times they need a bit of space from the group to deal with it. December 2011: Pepper is now very well integrated with the 2010 birds and his own cohort. February 2012: Pepper has had a tricky February, spending quite a lot of time alone and also exhibiting a limp on an off - which seems to get particularly bad in periods of cold weather. The supplementary feeding has certainly helped him though, and he is flying well and looks to be a very fine crane! September 2012: Pepper has adapted well to life within the Somerset flock and he and his cohort are all behaving as naturally as any wild cranes. His limp improved through the summer. He has been spending the summer feeding on the un-seasonally flooded grasslands of the Moors and Levels as part of smaller group, but as Autumn arrived he has started to flock again and follow the harvest, hoovering up any spilt grain in the fields. January 2014: 2013 was largely uneventful for Pepper, spending the spring and summer on Aller Moor and West Sedgemoor and the winter very much as part of a tight-knit flock on Stanmoor, near Stoke-St.Gregory. However – he went missing towards the end of December and we are not sure where is at present. Mar 2014: Pepper did not re-appear during the winter and he is still off the radar and his whereabouts are unknown. July 2015: Pepper has now been missing for a year and half and we can only assume that he has died.