After a 500-year absence, we’re dancing our way back into Britain: my week as a crane

Monday

Maybe our ancestors took part in too many medieval banquets. I’ve heard one occasion when they ate 204 of us at a sitting. We were gone before they started draining marshland and making sure that we could never come back. Or so it seemed.

Tuesday

I flew across Hickling Broad, our Norfolk home, with my partner-husband-mate-spouse-companion and on a day of sunshine everything seemed well: as if local extinction was an impossible thought. We’ve been together since our second year and settled into family life three years after that. Today seemed a day of achievement: when we could feel the year’s work almost done. On we flew: necks stretched out in front as if we couldn’t wait to get there, legs trailing out behind like an afterthought.

Wednesday

The date that matters above all other is 15 September 1979. That was when a pair of us cranes alighted at Horsey Mere just down the dyke from here. Hello! Sorry we’ve been away for 500 years. They didn’t even bother to migrate, in the immemorial tradition of cranekind. They took a fancy to the Broads and they stayed there. And slowly, very slowly indeed, we increased in numbers. Round these parts you can count us in dozens.

Thursday

We’ve raised a chick this year. Just the one. The first time we’ve succeeded. Believe me, it isn’t easy. But today he took his maiden flight. Parental pride is all very well, but I have to admit that he should have had L-plates. That landing on his lovely long legs – well, it’ll get better. Partner and I took to the sky ourselves and bugled at the top of our voices. You can call it a contact call or a flight call if you like, but I know it was about joy. Not unmixed with relief.

Friday

As for dancing, well, just a few steps. Wings wide, tripping lightly over the ground as if we were too delicate to touch the base earth beneath our toes. A pirouette, a bob, a bow. Nothing special. You should see us in spring, when the year’s great adventure is just beginning: if you don’t feel like dancing with us then you’re a creature with no soul.

Saturday

Here’s how to forage. Long stride, head down, seeds, insects, worms, snails: nothing very big, but practically anything will do. He’s learning. And already flying a little better; well, I suppose it could only go one way. One more Norfolk crane: we may be few, but we’re here to stay. Flying seems easier today than it did at the beginning of the week: as if the world had fewer cares than it did on Monday.

Crane CV
Lifespan A dozen years in the wild
Eating habits Little and often – and everything
Hobbies Dancing
Sexual preferences Fidelity

Photograph by Alamy/Zoonar GmbH