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Welcome back to Britain’s tallest bird  
One of Britain’s biggest, certainly its tallest, bird is again establishing many sustainable wetland populations, says PETER FROST
[Bengt Nyman / Creative Commons]

CRANES were once a common bird on most of Britain’s wetlands. But that was 400 years ago.

They were driven to extinction as we drained their wetland homes and hunted them for food.

One indication of just how common cranes were is indicated by hundreds of English place names with the prefix “Cran” such as Cranfield, Cranford, Cranbrook and Cranmore. 

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