Cranes: why Britain's tallest bird just had its best breeding year since the 1600s

By Richard Gregory, Honorary Professor of Genetics, Evolution & Environment, UCL

Binoculars in hand, I’m hunkered down beside the floodplain at the RSPB’s Nene Washes nature reserve in Cambridgeshire, England. It’s a cold, late-winter morning and there are few people around, but I’ve come early to try to get a glimpse of a giant among British birds: the common crane.

There are few wildlife spectacles as impressive as cranes performing their courtship dance. The graceful, leggy common crane (Grus grus) stands at a lofty four-foot tall. It has a dove-grey body,…

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