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.

Three swans a-swimming … on the path!

Blog post from NWT Thorpe Marshes by Chris Durdin on 16 December, 2019. Written with NWT blog in mind, published here in case it helps anyone coming to the guided walk on 17 December.

Mute swans on the flooded path at Thorpe Marshes.

“Streets full of water. Please advise.” It’s a famous telegram about Venice’s canals, certainly tongue-in-cheek, and though the wording and origin is disputed, the spirit of the quip came to mind as I walked around NWT Thorpe Marshes. 

The path through the marshes was under water after recent high tides. Three mute swans were surprised to see me as I waded along the path while I took the usual circuit around the reserve. It was that way round – the swans being surprised, not me. When the reserve is flooded the swans seem to choose the flooded paths over the ditches and water-filled marshes. There was a half-hearted hiss as I went past the trio, as if to say, “This is our kind of place today, what are you doing here?”

NWT Thorpe Marshes gets inundated by the tidal River Yare at some point in most winters. It’s usually when there’s a combination of high river flows after rain and high tides. It may be inconvenient for a few days for visitors and dog walkers, but I certainly don’t mind. It underlines that a wetland nature reserve is the ideal use for the area.

The Yare here retains some elements of a naturally functioning river system: in other words, it should flood. On these occasions, the marshes act as a temporary water storage area, a kind of safety valve that contributes to protecting people and property elsewhere.

Anyone reading this ahead of the next guided walk at Thorpe Marshes on 17 December may be wondering if the walk will be affected. It depends on the next few days, of course, but from experience the water drains away quickly. If paths across the marshes are under water, then the walk will simply stick to the higher riverside footpath that leads to the viewpoint over St Andrews Broad. But do wear wellies!

 Floods in a gateway at Thorpe Marshes.

Drinking water at Stansted Airport

The lack of a water fountain in the main departure lounge at London Stansted Airport continues to bug me. I went through there recently, with Honeyguide’s Picos de Europa group, and again there was no public water fountain to re-fill water bottles after security.

Stansted Airport advises that catering outlets will fill water bottles, which from my experience is true. The kind people at Pret a Manger did this for me and other Honeyguiders, with such speed and charm that it suggests the request is likely and expected. But how many others would think to ask? That service is not advertised.

Why does it matter? It could be argued that access to drinking water is a basic human need. But for me it’s all about reducing single use plastic. It’s easy to buy bottled water from any number of retail outlets. That won’t stop, but access to a fountain or tap would reduce the volume of plastic water bottles sold and used once.

You’d have to deaf and blind not to realise that single use plastic is an environmental concern. Refillable water bottles is an obvious ‘quick win’. BBC programmes such as Blue Planet and War on Plastic have highlighted the volume of plastic in our lives (and getting into our seas). Glastonbury went free of plastic bottles this year – and Sir David Attenborough went on stage to applaud that good work.

Water fountain after security at London Gatwick's North Terminal, March 2019.

The shame – from Stansted’s perspective – is that there used to be a perfectly good fountain in the entrance to the loos. That was taken away in the refurbishment two or three years ago.

I’ve been in correspondence with the Stansted Customer Relations team off and on since then. In January 2018, I was informed that:

“Having liaised with the terminal management team, I can confirm that we are currently surveying locations for a water fountain in our departures lounge. As you will appreciate there is currently extensive building work being undertaken and any new water fountain will be phased in line with these works as we would not want to install something now and then move it again at some point in the near future.”

Well, it hasn’t happened. My most recent correspondent says:

“At present, water fountains are in place at various locations within the airport including land side areas (before security), boarding gate satellites, the immigration hall and the baggage collection hall.”

But there is no fountain in the main departure lounge. I haven’t named names above: it’s unfair to do that for PR staff who have to put a positive spin on senior management’s lack of action.

The picture here shows one of two water fountains located immediately after security at London Gatwick’s North Terminal. We all know that you cannot take liquids through security, so this is the logical and sensible place to put them. There are water fountains with signs elsewhere in departures at Gatwick.

So, Stansted, please do what London Gatwick does. It’s not too much to ask, surely?

Chris Durdin, July 2019

Bee orchids bounce back

The meadow in the city: beyond Big Yellow Self Storage you can see one of Norwich City FC's stands.

Regular readers will know that I keep a regular eye on some bee orchids that grow outside Big Yellow Self Storage on Canary Way, opposite Norwich City FC’s football ground.

I made my regular visit to count them on 7^th June 2019. A rather gloomy day was brightened by counting 42 flowering spikes of bee orchids. Last year they’d dwindled in number to less than ten, and I feared it was the beginning of the end for them. Not so: more the end of the beginning as The Meadow in the City goes into a new phase.

In the early years, the bee orchids were on the grass opposite the football ground. Now most of them are growing around the corner. It helps that this year the Big Yellow team has organised that all the grass around two sides of the warehouse-like building has remained uncut. Credit where credit is due: there was reluctance to do this when I first broached the subject in 2009, but now I don’t even have to remind them. Even without the orchids it’s a delight: bumblebees were collecting nectar on ox-eye daisies and other flowers; birds were foraging in the vegetation.

Bee orchid Ophrys apifera.

I called in at Big Yellow reception to give the good news, where the staff kindly said that they enjoy my annual visit. As we discussed, they were in many ways ahead of the curve. Wildlife charity Plantlife was promoting No Mow May this year. The BBC’s Springwatch has its Gardenwatch project. “Precious wildlife havens in an ever increasing concrete jungle,” according to presenter Michaela Strachan, which sums up Big Yellow's meadow rather nicely. Add to this the increasing understanding of how nature helps our mental health or wellbeing and that’s a lot of boxes ticked.

As you’ll see from the photos, the bee orchids are flowering now and there are buds of flowers still to come. If you are passing Big Yellow Storage in central Norwich, do take time to look.

Bee orchids in flower and in bud.

Bee orchid in a strange setting.

Forty Years of the EU’s Birds Directive

Forty Years of the EU’s Birds Directive

In April, there was a notable anniversary for all nature conservationists. It was 40 years since the European Union’s Birds’ Directive, the first environmental legislation from the EU and still a cornerstone of nature conservation.

Semi-collared flycatcher, Crete, April 2017.

More formally this is the ‘Council Directive 2009/147/EC on the conservation of wild birds.’ It is best known for setting up a network of Special Protection Areas (SPAs, as we call them in the UK). It also gives obligations to protect and conserve habitats for 194 species and subspecies, listed under Annex 1: bitterns, pelicans, terns and many birds of prey are just a few of these; passerines are often those with restricted distribution, such as semi-collared flycatcher and trocaz pigeon.

The agreement of the ‘Birds Directive’ in April 1979 coincides with my own career in nature conservation. I arrived at the RSPB’s HQ in the second half of 1978. The UK’s nature legislation had to be improved to implement the Birds Directive. A task I was given was to mobilise letter-writing support through RSPB members in local groups, via the Society’s regional network, to lobby to maintain or improve various elements of the Wildlife and Countryside Bill, which became the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981. As well updating the previous Protection of Birds Acts, this introduced legal protection for Sites of Special Scientific Interest.

It is difficult to overstate how important for nature this has been in the last four decades. Not perfect, of course: nature has declined in the wider countryside especially, and some SSSIs have declined due to external factors like pollution, climate change and a lack of (or inappropriate) management. 

Kourtaliótiko Gorge, Crete, April 2019. A Special Protection Area (more here.)

But the big picture remains a network of protected sites. That network was reinforced further when the EU’s ‘Habitats Directive’ came in. The two nature directives work together: SPAs under the Birds Directive and Special Areas for Conservation (SACs) declared under the Habitats Directive make up the Natura 2000 network of protected areas in the EU, internationally important wildlife sites. 

The itineraries of many Honeyguide holidays include visits to Natura 2000 sites as a routine part of the holiday. Many of us have seen signs celebrating these: it’s interesting that the Natura 2000 label is used more on the continent than in the UK. Also, the EU’s ‘LIFE’ programme has funded many conservation projects often run by BirdLife partners: lammergeier, bittern, Dalmatian pelican and Egyptian vulture are examples you may have come across at home or abroad.

Plains at Santa Marta de Magasca, Extremadura, March 2019.
Part of the Natura 2000 network of internationally important wildlife sites (more here.)

Brexit or Remain for wildlife?

Here comes the political bit. What happens to this conservation legislation if/when the UK leaves the EU? We have the choice to keep it unchanged, improve it or undermine it. Widely-reported politician’s phrases like “get rid of all the green crap” make many fearful that nature protection will be weakened. This explains why most conservationists are instinctively pro-EU and pro-Remain. We (I include myself in this) take the view that nature protection should extend beyond national borders, with migrating birds the obvious example. We see the EU and its institutions as a support to nature conservation, setting common (and high) standards, a buffer and a back-stop against national governments that may make bad decisions that damage important sites for nature.

There is a coherent counter-argument that nature could benefit from Brexit: this relates to farming and the Common Agricultural Policy. The CAP has been a major factor driving agricultural intensification and wildlife losses as a result. The CAP has been resistant to change: getting agreement for major reform across so many EU countries has proved intractable. DEFRA Secretary of State Michael Gove’s ‘Green Brexit’ paper favours a big shift of subsidies away from production and into ‘public goods’ including wildlife and access. Gove isn’t everyone’s cup of tea, but I think he’s genuine. Fine if he stays: what if he doesn’t? The two previous DEFRA ministers were singing from the NFU’s hymn sheet.

Given where we are now, could there be half-way house that is a win-win for nature? The UK could stay aligned to the Single Market, bound by common standards of environmental protection – the Birds and Habitats Directives and other environmental directives such as on air, water and environmental assessment (plus other areas e.g. health & safety, workers’ rights). Yet outside the EU we would leave the CAP and implement wildlife-friendly farming. Too good to be true?