Amy and Harry's blog

With all the latest rain and flooding causing so much disruption to the lives of so many people, one would expect there to be some change to the lives of our animals too. But not the Cranes! Their feeding and daily habits don't appear to have altered in the least, whilst the landscape around them has been completely transformed.

Due to it being the Diamond Jubillee this year, it would have been rude not to have a Crane named after our fantastic monarch.  The name suggested by Matthew Brierley, face of the RSPB, was Elizabeth Royal, and has stuck ever since.  She has adapted well to life on the Somerset Levels and Moors, and is slowly beginning to integrate into the flock of adults.

Whilst out monitoring on a hazy morning at the end of January one of our volunteers, John Crispin, was also out taking some pictures of the birds. He has sent some in to us to share with you. The unrung bird has been reguarly spotted joining Pepper, Flash, Charlie and Albert to share a meal around the feeder seet up on Aller Moor. Check out our facebook page for more images http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.296165403771676.73144.159346644120220&type=1.

The RSPB is running five additional 'Dates with the cranes'. These events will include: 

The Crane Project staff had a bit of an interesting experience on monday.  There had been plans this week to catch a few of the 2011 and 2010 birds and fit them with properly functioning satellite and radio tags.  It was assumed that a costumed rearer would be able to walk rigt up to the cranes, as was happening in August and September.  The cranes, however, had different ideas.  The first atttempt to get close ended up with them taking flight, with most of the birds circling low, evidently quite curious to see Dad after so long, but shortly flew a few miles away.&n

Over the last month, the Crane project team had been getting reports or varying numbers of unringed 'wild'  adult cranes in with our flock of Somerset birds. During the last two weeks, however, one of these wild cranes has regularly been seen following and feeding alongside our cranes, and now seems to have made the decision to stay for the winter.  This seems to be rather wise as a migration this late in the season could most likely be unsuccessful.

All 34 Somerset Cranes have been spending much of their time of late out feeding on Aller Moor.  The have been quite easily observable from the Parrett Trail Footpath feeding in fields out on the moor over a range of habitats including grassland and suupplementary sacrificial crops left by farmers for them.

  Cranes bugling in barley.

There was great surprise when yesterday (Sunday 16th October) three wild cranes were spotted feeding amongst our birds out on the Moors and Levels!  There was slight speculation as to whether these wid birds, without any leg rings, would stick around, or fly away and take all of the somerset cranes with them.  They left, heading South, in late afternoon, without any other cranes in tow, most probably trying to complete a migration that was by now well off course.  These cranes could well be the three which were spotted flying South-West across the Bristol Channel in

About 6 weeks ago one of the young cranes, Swampy, was found injured, unable to walk or fly she had to be taken into our rehabilitation unit. It took about 4 weeks for her to fully recover, which worried us as she was spending valuable bonding time away from the rest of the younger group and also missing out on any interactions with the older 2010 birds.

  Decoy cranes in Spring barley and barley stubble