CRANES were once a common bird on most of Britain’s wetlands. But that was 400 years ago.

They were driven to extinction as we drained their wetland homes and hunted them for food.

One indication of just how common cranes were is indicated by hundreds of English place names with the prefix “Cran” such as Cranfield, Cranford, Cranbrook and Cranmore. 

These were all areas populated by cranes. Now 400 years later cranes are successfully repopulating wetland all across Britain. How did it happen? 

A tiny breeding population became re-established on the Norfolk Broads in the late 1970s, but this was so vulnerable it was thought unlikely to result in recolonisation of the rest of Britain in the foreseeable future.

Egg collectors were a particular problem, requiring exact nest locations to be kept secret.

Red kites and white-tailed eagles have shown that bird reintroduction can work.

A number of British wetlands seemed suitable for crane reintroduction and the Somerset Levels emerged as having particularly good potential.

The Levels are relatively undisturbed, with few major hazards, and the climate is relatively mild.

In 2017 the UK breeding population of cranes was just 10 pairs and 52 winter visitors, with 37 cranes recorded as passage migrants. 

The re-establishment started when two birds appeared on the North Norfolk Broads in autumn 1979.

It still isn’t clear if they arrived under their own steam or were unofficially brought here, perhaps released or escaped from a captive collection.

These birds stayed throughout 1980 and ’81, and in ’82 raised a single chick, the first successful breeding in Britain for around 400 years.

A further chick was raised in ’83, but disappeared before the end of the year. An additional bird joined the group on 16 August 1982, and remained with them until at least 1987.

Further breeding attempts were made from 1985 through until the end of the 1980s.

1986 and 1988 each produced only one chick. Then migrant birds joined the flock: not all stayed, however both the winter and summer populations slowly but steadily grew. 

Once the Broads’ population began to climb into double figures, cranes began to be spotted in other places. One early sighting was in summer 1987 with a pair in Essex. 

2002 saw two pairs in Yorkshire. By 2008 a pair bred successfully on the Humberhead Levels that lie between Yorkshire and Lincolnshire — two chicks in 2008 and another two in 2009. 

Each year only one chick survived and the other provided dinner for a crafty fox.

At Lakenheat, in Suffolk, beneath the flight path of US bombers, a pair tried to breed. In 2010 another pair reared one young in the Nene washes in Cambridgeshire. 

A number of conservation groups got together to bring eggs from Europe and hand-rear cranes at Slimbridge.

Anyone having contact with the birds has to dress like a crane, with a long grey smock and hood topped by a replica crane’s head. 

Approximately a score of cranes are reared and released each year on the Somerset Levels and moors, where the project is also working with farmers and landowners to create suitable breeding areas for the birds.

The RSPB says population modelling suggests that numbers will swell much faster soon, as fecundity of the surviving birds improves with age and second-generation chicks reach breeding age.

The common crane (Grus grus) is a truly spectacular animal, four feet tall (1.2m) with a large grey body, a red cap and a floppy tail.

Think of something between our heron and an emu. Their trumpeting, echoing call cannot be mistaken for anything else. 

They are fabled for their complex dancing display behaviour, where they perform bows, pirouettes and bobs.

Although we are encouraging a resident crane population here in Britain, most of Europe’s common cranes take part in an epic annual migration.

The common crane breeds in wetlands in Germany, Estonia, Finland, Norway, Poland, the Baltic Islands, Russia and Sweden. But at the end of the summer they start the most fascinating stage of their lives.

Thousands head south using three migratory routes. The western route, used by about 130,000 birds, takes them to Spain, Portugal and Morocco.

The central or Baltic route sees approximately 140,000 cranes head for Africa from Poland crossing Serbia and Italy.

Lastly, the eastern route, used by an unknown number of cranes, departs from Estonia and Russia, crosses Turkey and Egypt and arrives in Ethiopia.

Meanwhile in the US at the moment there is a major controversy because cranes are being hunted for their delicious meat that tastes “like the best pork chops.” 

I will never forget the first time I was lucky enough to see a crane in the wild. I was lucky enough to serve for many years on the National Park Authority that runs the Norfolk and Suffolk Broads.

Good countryside and landscape management saw all kinds of long-absent and rare species establish or re-establish themselves in these fascinating peaty wetlands. 

Out on the Broads, on foot or afloat, there was always exciting wildlife to see. As populations grew sightings of otters, marsh harrier, ospreys and bitterns became more common. 

Smaller but no less exciting to see were species like the Norfolk hawker dragonfly, which we adopted as the symbol of the Broads National Park.

Britain’s biggest butterfly, the spectacular Swallowtail, made its home on the rare milk parsley plant. 

Less well known but just as important were the curiously named Broads dolly fly, the slender amber snail and the scarce marsh neb, a very rare moth. I usually needed a national park ranger or other staff expert to show me these.

Stranger sightings included the occasional grey seal. Often seen along the sea beaches that border the park, they occasionally ventured into the Broads river system for rich pickings of pike and other freshwater fish.

We mustn’t forget plants either. The Broads provide a perfect home for a wealth of plants, including 16 different species of pondweed such as the rare shining and flat-stalked varieties.

Stoneworts are large algae rather like freshwater seaweeds and a score of species are known here, including great tassel stonewort, bearded stonewort and starry stonewort. 

Yellow water-lily, white water-lily and rare water-soldier make the river edges colourful and interesting.

Queen of Broadland plants must be the rare fen orchid but keen plant-hunters get more excited about crested buckler fern, round-leaved wintergreen or some of the tiny water plants so rare and little known they only have unpronounceable Latin names.

However for me the most spectacular wildlife I saw on the Broads was the huge and balletic long-legged common crane.

They were an oh-so-rare sight all those years ago as nest locations were kept secret to avoid disturbance and foil egg collectors. 

Today I am delighted that the common crane will live up to its name and become common enough that in future years everyone will be able to see, enjoy and marvel at Britain’s tallest bird.