A secret revealed

Crane artwork by Mike Langham.

It’s 40 years since cranes returned to the Broads in Norfolk having been absent as breeding bird from the UK for some 400 years. Chris Durdin, co-author of The Norfolk Cranes’ Story, tells their story.

This is the 4^th and final blog of four blogs. The full story is in The Norfolk Cranes’ Story book, which recently came out in paperback. See www.norfolkcranes.co.uk for how to buy a copy.

A secret revealed

When the cranes first returned to Horsey, secrecy was an important part of protecting them. It helped that cranes have a knack of disappearing from view during the breeding season. There were rumours that the birds were ‘escapes’, which discouraged some birdwatchers from wanting to see them. 

But it would be easy to be unrealistic about how secret the Horsey cranes were: they are large and sometimes noisy birds and word of their presence spread. As the veil lifted somewhat, information was published in bird reports and books. But we remain cautious about saying where cranes nest.

After the turn of the century, with crane numbers increasing and pairs nesting away from Horsey, their guardian John Buxton became happy to talk about his part in the cranes’ story at Horsey. 

John kept detailed diaries of his observations. These contemporary records were vital when he worked with me to write The Norfolk Cranes’ Story book, first published in 2011, now also in paperback. 

Crane with a potato (John Buxton).

Watching cranes
With up to 50 cranes in the Broads, plus a growing number in the Fens, chance encounters are getting easier. They are secretive when nesting, so autumn and winter are the best time to see them. The biggest group is in the Hickling-Horsey area, and they sometimes feed close to the coast road between West Somerton and Waxham.

The best place to watch for cranes is the raptor viewpoint at Stubb Mill, Hickling. Late afternoon is a favourite time, and cranes are often seen here along with barn owls and both marsh and hen harriers coming to their overnight roost, plus bittern and merlin with a little luck. Park at NWT Hickling nature reserve centre and walk ¾ mile to the raised viewpoint.

Outside the UK, the sight of large numbers of migrating cranes can be enjoyed in several counties, including southern Sweden, Germany’s coast, Hungary and parts of France. The biggest winter flocks are in Spain, especially in Extremadura where between November and February there are more than 100,000 cranes.

Crane with juvenile at Horsey (John Buxton).

This concludes the 4-part blog about the return of cranes to the UK.

Cranes in the UK – a brief history

It’s 40 years since cranes returned to the Broads in Norfolk having been absent as breeding bird from the UK for some 400 years. Chris Durdin, co-author of The Norfolk Cranes’ Story, tells their story.

This is part 3 of four blogs. The full story is in The Norfolk Cranes’ Story book, which recently came out in paperback. See www.norfolkcranes.co.uk for how to buy a copy.

Cranes in the UK – a brief history

The return of cranes to Norfolk is a recolonisation – a distinction worth making in view of the reintroduction project in the West Country. But exactly how many cranes used to breed in Britain and Ireland is far from clear – hardly surprising as they may not have bred since the 17^th century.

The only proof of breeding in the literature is an account of a payment for a ‘young Pyper crane’ at Hickling in 1543.

Nearly 300 place names start with Cran, Carn or Tran, from the Old Norse or Anglo-Saxon names for crane. That suggests cranes were common and widespread, though some of these place names might be linked to grey herons, still confused with cranes (like the ‘biggest bloody herons’) today. Or they may have been gathering places for non-breeding flocks of cranes.

Illustrations in manuscripts and records of cranes served at feasts provide further evidence, and draw distinctions between cranes and herons. References to cranes on Christmas menus and those shot on the Le Strange Estate at Hunstanton point to winter flocks or migrants.

There can be little doubt that shooting combined with large-scale drainage in the Fens and elsewhere drove the cranes to extinction in the British Isles.

A crane at Horsey, Norfolk, is harassed by an avocet (John Buxton). Header: crane silhouettes (Nick Upton).

To be continued.

Why did cranes come to Horsey in Norfolk?

It’s 40 years since cranes returned to the Broads in Norfolk having been absent as breeding bird from the UK for some 400 years. Chris Durdin, co-author of The Norfolk Cranes’ Story, tells their story. 

This is part 2 of four blogs. The full story is in The Norfolk Cranes’ Story book, which recently came out in paperback. See www.norfolkcranes.co.uk for how to buy a copy.

Why did cranes come to Horsey in Norfolk?

What we didn’t know in the 1980s is that cranes in eastern and northern Europe were increasing in numbers and their range was spreading westwards. With hindsight, that first colonisation more than three decades ago looks almost inevitable. At the time, it felt like the cranes had a very tentative and vulnerable toehold in Britain.

Cranes at Horsey (Nick Upton): black bustles on this pair.

Why choose Horsey? The coastal location plays a part, for a migrant bird. It’s a relatively quiet part of the Broads, with large and undisturbed reed and sedge beds suitable for nesting. These are close to open grazing marshes and arable where the cranes feed for much of the year.

An additional lucky element for these colonising cranes was to be on John Buxton’s local patch. He became the cranes’ guardian. Helping John was a team: for several years both the RSPB and Horsey Estate employed crane wardens who did guard duties, as we were worried by the risks of disturbance and egg-collectors.

Numbers grew slowly but steadily during the 1980s, helped by additional migrants joining the group at Horsey. There was a worrying lean period with no new young from 1989 to 1996, but then at least two young were fledged in 1997.

It wasn’t until the new millennium – in 2001 – that cranes nested away from Horsey and two years later, in 2003, they nested at Norfolk Wildlife Trust’s Hickling nature reserve for the first time.

A bigger step was the first breeding cranes away from the Broads. That was in 2007, when a pair nested at the RSPB’s Lakenheath Fen nature reserve in Suffolk, following a big influx of migrant cranes into the UK. These birds are part of a scattered group in the Fens.

Hundreds of people every year enjoy the sight of flying cranes or hear their evocative bugling calls in Norfolk and beyond. John Buxton died in 2014, but he leaves a remarkable legacy. Cranes may never be common, but John’s determined, patient work in those early days has paid off and their future looks assured.

To be continued.

Horsey Mill (John Buxton)

'The biggest bloody herons'

It’s 40 years since cranes returned to the Broads in Norfolk having been absent as breeding bird from the UK for some 400 years. Chris Durdin, co-author of The Norfolk Cranes’ Story, tells their story. 

This is part 1 of four blogs. The full story is in The Norfolk Cranes’ Story book, which recently came out in paperback. See www.norfolkcranes.co.uk for how to buy a copy.

“The biggest bloody herons.” That was the farmer’s description of two birds on the marshes at Horsey in September 1979. At the other end of the phone was John Buxton from Horsey Hall, who the excited farmer had phoned.

John guessed they were cranes, not least as it wasn’t the first time they’d been seen, as migrants, in the Horsey area. But this time it was different; these birds decided to stay.

The first three cranes - a scan from a slide by John Buxton. Note how here they are feeding on arable.

The two cranes were seen in the Hickling-Horsey area from 13^th September 1979 and a third bird joined them during October. They stayed all winter, sometimes feeding in potato fields. In early April they left, but returned two and half weeks later, perhaps deterred by the long flight across the North Sea to Scandinavia.  

Two cranes, acting as a pair, then stayed all summer but didn’t breed. The first nesting attempt was in 1981 when two eggs were laid and one chick hatched but didn’t survive.

The first successful nesting came in the following year, 1982, when the first crane fledged in the UK for some 400 hundred years.

The original pair of cranes at Horsey (John Buxton)

Fast forward to 2020, and there are around 10 pairs of cranes in the Broads and more than 30 pairs in the UK, including the reintroduced birds at the ‘Great Crane Project’ in Somerset and separate recolonisations in the Fens and in Scotland.

To be continued.