We’re late heading for Hickling Broad, but the day is bright and cold, a rare gem after days of gloom. I’ve said we might see cranes. Now my family teases me with every construction crane we pass – surprisingly many.
Across the River Bure and the horizons open wider, mainly into arable land. A few minutes later, “Crane!” I shout, but this is no mechanical crane. We take a lane off the main road, to get closer, and pull into a layby.
Three common cranes are standing in a close group, feeding – two adults and a juvenile, with large grey bodies and floppy tail feathers, the adults slightly larger with red-capped heads. At over 120cm, Grus grus is the UK’s tallest bird: think grey heron, mix in ostrich and a dash of stork – elegant and graceful, yet with a comic, leggy gangliness.
“One of our rarest birds,” I announce, explaining that breeding cranes became extinct in the 16th century across Britain, because of the drainage of wetlands and hunting. In 1979, three birds returned to Norfolk, then the Great Crane Project imported eggs from the continent and released fledglings. Meanwhile, the creation of new wetlands has also improved the cranes’ future, although they may never again live up to the “common” of their name.
We stroll at the Norfolk Wildlife Trust’s Hickling Broad reserve. The sun drops, replaced by a fat full moon, big and low. I take photos of the children, aligned to look as if they are cupping the moon in their hands. A barn owl hunts over the reed bed, while messy skeins of pink-footed geese fly over. I’d hoped to see more cranes – they often come to roost here – but it’s nearly dark and the temperature has fallen. We head back, senses alive and slightly disoriented.
A noise comes across the marsh. A trumpeting, echoing call. It can only be the bugling of the crane, although I’ve never heard it before. We stand and listen. It’s not beautiful but it is deeply sonorous and, here in the dark, it sounds as if it is from a Jurassic world.
We make it back to the car with only the full moon to light our way.
