Baby's first footprints

 Parent and baby crane footprints - 10th July 2018

Lovely to see this - proof of hatching success for one of the Somerset pairs of cranes with the young crane's footprints alongside the parents.    A number of Great Crane Project birds are busy chick rearing at the moment, with the first fledging imminent.    Other pairs have only just hatched so we won't be able to give a full account of this year's breeding until much later in the summer / early autumn.   We do know that we had over 20 pairs of birds this year, 19 of which have been confirmed as breeding, which is much better than last year, when the dry weather saw only 10 breeding attempts made.  Hatching success has been be good this year too - so keeping everthing crossed for the young birds now as they grow over the first, really critical and dangerous first 10 weeks of their life without the power of flight!   

About the author

Damon’s role is to act as the hub of the project - making sure everyone involved knows what is going on and that it is all running smoothly. He is also responsible for project community awareness work in Somerset, construction of the release enclosure, and running the post release monitoring work in Somerset.  Damon works alongside the RSPB reserve teams in Somerset.