Crane Reintroductions and Animal Behaviour

I guess that amongst my British readers you will already be aware of and probably already watch Springwatch, but as many of my readers are from overseas, I apologise in advance if I am talking about stuff you already know.

But last year on springwatch they showed one of the Barn Owl chicks eating his younger siblings. One thing that the programme can not be accused of is being over sentimental. This is part of normal natural behaviour. Then this year was something even more extraordinary. When the series started they showed a Swallow (Barn Swallow) that was using an artificial nest. On Monday the chicks hatched and the male killed the chicks. While there was an attempt to save the chicks, there was nothing that could be done and the male killed the chicks. He then went on to build a new nest.

Now while artificial nest boxes are a boon to many birds, even back twenty years ago I was told that artificial nests for swallows just don't work. This is because the building of the nest is an important part of the pair bonding. What possibly happened in respect of the birds on SW was that the male thought the female had been unfaithful. It was not his nest and he possibly thought that he was not the father.

As this has never been filmed before, even the experts are not sure what is going on, but it shows that we don't know everything and we humans have more to learn.

One of the other things that SW has been showing is the work being done to reintroduce the Crane to the UK. This has involved one of the presenters having to dress up in a silly costume to disguise his human form. Something I can empathise with as I have had to do similar things myself. However, while the techniques may seem silly, they are in fact proven ones. In the US the same processes have been used to help increase numbers of the Whopping Crane. This includes all the dressing in silly costumes and using litter pickers to mimic the bill of the chicks mother. As well as teaching the chicks to become cranes, well it has to be seen to be believed. However, the aspect that differs with the American programme is that they have to also teach the birds to migrate.

This is done by teaching the chicks to fly with and behind microlight aircraft so that they can learn the migration route to Florida.
For my American reader you can see this on Wild Chronicles in an edition called Operation Migration.

The success of the red kite reintroduction programme all bodes well for the Crane School.