Hopes rise for successful breeding of rare bird locally after 300 years

(Above) BNM staff recently captured footage of cranes nesting on a rewetted bog.

Rare footage of a pair of cranes nesting has been recorded in a rewetted Bord na Móna bog in the midlands.

The company recently announced that a member of staff had captured footage of the cranes nesting at an unidentified rewetted bog. The site in question had two previous breeding attempts in 2019 and 2020. If the pair recorded recently successfully breed, they will be first common cranes to breed on the island of Ireland in around 300 years.

Though cranes have been extinct in Ireland since the 1700s, there have been increased sightings of them in Irish skies in recent years during migration and over-wintering.

This has been largely due to ongoing conservation works in the UK that has seen numbers of the birds there rise from zero in the 1970s to over 200 today.

But despite the excitement of seeing the birds in Ireland again, there has been no evidence of successful breeding attempts on this island. The discovery of a pair of cranes nesting on a Bord na Móna peatland has created a lot of excitement locally and see a significant increase in the number of people visiting Lough Boora Discovery Park, one of the most popular locations in the country for birdwatching.

Mark McCorry, the lead ecologist with Bord na Móna, says that hopes are high that it will be a case of third third lucky when it comes to attempting to get a pair of cranes to breed at the unidentified midlands site.

“Pairs of Common Cranes usually take several years to successfully fledge chicks. This is why this sighting is particularly significant. Not only are we actually seeing these birds nesting in Ireland for the first time in 300 years, but we are very optimistic that this third attempt may yield the first crane born here in centuries.”

The crane is deeply connected to the culture and history of Ireland.

They have been central to folklore tales such as Fionn Mac Cumhaill, the druids, St Colmcille, and the Book of Kells. Their Gaelic name, corr, can be founded in hundreds of place names, such as the Curragh in Kildare which means ‘crane meadow’.

Unfortunately, they were also a popular food item for people at the time, and their ease of capture by foxes and the draining of wetlands resulted in their demise some time between 1600-1700.

Speaking on RTÉ, Niall Hatch of Bird Watch Ireland said that, historically, cranes were “a well known bird from a cultural point of view within Ireland”.

“There is actually an illustration of it in the Book of Kells. The monks would have known it well. Indeed it medieval Ireland it was quite common for noble people to keep cranes as pets.

“Apparently they could be tamed when they were very young and were household pets. One of the most common in Ireland it seems. Times really have changed the species used to be very well known.”

The location of the nest is confidential in order to protect and conserve the birds. However, it is confirmed that the site is situated on a cutaway bog, formerly used to harvest peat for energy production.

“Crane nests float amongst emergent wetland vegetation such as reeds.”, McCorry said.

“It is obvious, then, as wetlands disappeared, then so would they. But thanks to the ongoing work by Bord na Móna, we are in with a chance once again of seeing these majestic birds breed and thrive in Ireland.”