Blogs

Spent a lovely day on Saturday at Othery Street Fair, where the return of the cranes to Somerset was celebrated by The Othery Society.  A marvelous crane nest float, complete with new hatched chicks and painted eggs, was paraded along the street.

  Tamsin, Reg, Sedge and Monty in April (John Crispin)

Who is afraid of the sound of the wind in the grass?

Who likes a good scrap?

Who is obsessed with plantain?

Who loves eating slugs?

Find out at the 2011 Meet the cranes pages.....  

A short video taken last week of Amy with three of the cranes B3, B4 and B5, starting to form a stable cohort.

Chick B3 (nicknamed Charlie) is the one in the water.  He/She is quite a water baby!

Below is a short video taken on the same day of Chick C5 trying to eat one of the plantain seed heads.... giving up, and going foraging instead.

  Wonderful photo taken by Marie-Ann D'Aloia, working for the project at the Crane School rearing facility this spring - Thanks Marie-Ann!

Here's a short video of Amy walking 'Swampy' last week.  The chicks need regular excercise and are walked at least twice a day at this stage, but walked individually, as they exhibit a lot of natural aggression to each other and need to be kept apart.  Its amazing that they turn into such a sociable bird!

 Chick 31 (White Blue)

A lovely moment captured by project volunteers Kevin Harris.  Some of the group of eighteen were seen napping in the afternoon sun.

There are four keeping an eye out whilst six take a siesta.  Can you spot all of them?

  Chick 26 (First to hatch on April 21st 2011)

 Chick 26 venturing out into its run.....