The Great Crane Project is an attempt to reintroduce this majestic bird back into the UK.  To find out more visit:

 The Great Crane Project

 The Great Crane Project on Flickr  

Cranes and people

from RSPB

Cranes have enchanted human beings for millennia

• They figure in prehistoric cave paintings 
• Homer wrote of their exhilarating sound in the Iliad (first bird mentioned in western literature -  4000 BP) 
• Roman folklore explains that the god Hermes invented writing when he saw the letter shapes made by flying cranes 
• Cranes were once believed to carry other bids on their back during their long migrations 

Their names are heard in everyday language:

• the word 'geranium' is from 'geranos', the Greek for crane, as the plant's seedpods resemble the birds' heads 
• the word 'pedigree' derives from the French phrase pied de grue, 'foot of a crane', as family trees look like the birds' feet
• Cranberries are thought to be named after cranes

Cranes appear almost human

• They stand upright and are tall, elegant and beautiful 
• They are very sociable animals, and once paired, are loyal and attentive partners and parents
• Cranes have well-developed communication systems including over 90 physical gestures and sounds
• Cranes dance: they use elaborate choreography to develop social skills when young, and for courtship when older. In a flock, if one bird begins to dance, all the others join in: leaping and bowing and kicking, often tossing skyward small objects they pick off the ground
• There is evidence of imitative human crane dances from as long as 9,000 years ago, from Australia and many countries in Asia, Africa, Europe and North America.

Cranes are record breaking birds

• They are one of the the longest surviving bird species (they have been on earth for around 9 million years)
• They are the tallest (sarus cranes reach over 6 feet; our species stands at between 4-4.5 feet and are Britais's tallest bird species)
• They are the loudest (their calls travel over distances of three miles)
• They are the highest flying of all birds (they reach altitudes of 32,000 feet)

The emergence of the global conservation movement has invested cranes with added symbolic value as emblems of humanity's changing relationship with nature and wetlands in particular.