Common Crane breeding success at Lakenheath Fen RSPB

Posted on: 23 Aug 2016

For the second year running, two pairs of Common Cranes have successfully raised three chicks between them on a Suffolk RSPB reserve.

Common Crane is one of Britain's rarest breeding birds and with only around 25 pairs nesting in the country each year. Common Crane had been extirpated in Britain since the 1600s due to hunting and loss of habitat. They recolonised the Norfolk Broads in the 1970s and have gradually started breeding elsewhere in the country.

Two pairs of cranes arrived at Lakenheath Fen in 2007 and have nested on the reserve every year since then. In 2009, one of these pairs fledged the first chick to reach that stage in the Fens for over 400 years. Since then, the two pairs of cranes at Lakenheath Fen had reared a total of eight chicks until this year. Common Cranes live an average of 20-25 years, and find a mate and start to breed at between three and five years of age.

Staff and volunteers at Lakenheath Fen RSPB on the border of Suffolk, Norfolk and Cambridgeshire, are over the moon that this scarce species, which is very shy and secretive during the breeding season, has had this success in front of an audience of commuters on the Abellio Greater Anglia train route between Norwich and Ely.


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Help protect rare breeding bird on the Sheffield Moors

Last modified: 18 April 2016

Visitors to the Sheffield Moors are being asked to help protect one of the area’s most threatened birds, the ring ouzel.

More commonly known as mountain blackbirds, ring ouzels travel thousands of miles every summer from North Africa to breed on the gritstone edges of the Peak District. Currently, the males are setting up breeding territories in preparation of the imminent arrival of the females.

Sadly, ring ouzels are in serious trouble in the UK; over the past two decades they have declined by 70% and are a species of serious conservation concern. Urgent action is needed to reverse their declines before it’s too late.

In recent years, the Peak District National Park Authority (PDNPA) has worked closely with the British Mountaineering Council (BMC) on Stanage, to raise awareness of the importance of ring ouzel conservation. With the imminent lease of Burbage from Sheffield City Council, the Eastern Moors Partnership is keen to continue this pioneering work to ensure a future where wildlife and people can co-exist.

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