NORFOLK RESIDENTIAL WEEKEND Fri 10th-Sun 12th October 2008
Leader Thelma Caine
Book your place now for the autumn weekend! This year, we return to Norfolk but to a different location, based at the Caley Hall Hotel, Old Hunstanton. The weekend will run from Friday evening until Sunday afternoon. The Caley Hall Hotel has en-suite double, single and twin-bedded rooms, including ground floor accommodation. Costs including bed, breakfast, evening meal and packed lunches will be £140 for a shared room and £160 for single occupancy. Travel to and from Norfolk will be in cars with lifts arranged where required. Visits will be made to several of Norfolk's famous reserves including Titchwell and Snettisham. Over a hundred species are expected. This area regularly attracts exciting species. Birds seen on previous visits have included ARCTIC SKUA, GOSHAWK, YELLOWBREASTED BUNTING, WHITE STORK, WRYNECK and RED-NECKED PHALAROPE to name a few. For booking forms contact Thelma Caine (Tel: 01372 468432). A deposit of £30 per person is required with cheques payable to the SDBWS.
The Common Crane: a European conservation success
The common crane nests mainly in northern Europe in Scandinavia, the Baltic States, Russia and the north of Germany and Poland. It is found breeding elsewhere in Europe including the UK but in smaller numbers. It used to be quite widespread and in the past was eaten but has suffered more due to human interference with its habitats. It was particularly in trouble along its migration routes.
France has a few places where they stop off. One is the lakes of the Champagne region of northern France (Lac du Der and Lac d'Orient). They are also found on lakes in the middle of France such as the thousands of ponds in the La Brenne region (south of the Loire). The last stop in France is in the southwest, Arjuzanx in Les Landes region, where they collect in numbers to prepare for the crossing of the Pyrenees. In Spain they travel south to Extramadura where many of them overwinter in the 'dehesa', a kind of savannah of grassland with cork and holm oaks. In this region they feed on acorns and their normal food in the rice paddies and vegetable fields of the valleys. Some fly further south to North Africa by crossing the Gibraltar Straits. Fewer seem to go all the way and more overwinter at the stop offs. In 1977 only 40 overwintered in France but in 2003 there were 50,000!
As birds stay for a day or so at a stop off before flying on, numbers fluctuate as groups arrive and leave. By going to one of the lakes at the peak time you can see very large numbers, for example 20,000 cranes are possible at Lac du Der in mid-November. The return spring migration is more gradual with smaller numbers.
The cranes nest by lakes and ponds and feed on aquatic invertebrates plus frogs, fish etc. They mate for life and produce one or two young a year. The young stay with the adults on migration when large numbers of cranes collect together. On route they roost standing in water and fly off each morning to fields where they feed on worms and other soil invertebrates. They also eat maize, grain, potatoes and acorns. They can fly continuously for two days and so need very few stops on their migration. Lack of food and the weather gradually pushes them south from lake to lake and groups of cranes join up in Germany to create the spectacular mass migration along quite a narrow flyway in France.
Lac du Der is actually a kind of reservoir. A canal takes excess water to it from the Marne river in winter and
especially in at snow melt time. This ensures that floodwaters do not reach the Paris region. The water is released gradually throughout the year. In the summer the reservoir is almost dry. By November the water level is still low but there is enough water for the cranes to stand in to roost.
The reservoir of Lac du Der has a large wall to retain the water and on the top of this there is a road that provides a good viewing point for seeing the cranes moving between their roost and feeding areas which they do at dawn and dusk. Nearby Lac du Der there is La Ferme des Grues (The Farm for the Cranes) which is run to provide feeding areas. This has a hide that enables you to look out over the fields. On the lake there may also be great white egrets plus several species of ducks and geese.
We are running a trip by car there at the weekend of 15-16 November. As Lac du Der is four hours from Calais (3 hours on motorway) it needs to be a long weekend with a day to get there and a day to get back.
If you are interested in going please contact Paul Tregenza tel: 020-8390-7430 email: paul@tregenza.plus.com