Last scientific evidence of breeding in Scotland dates from iron age but RSPB hopes rare birds will make permanent return.
Centuries after they last graced royal banqueting tables and their loud trumpeting calls echoed across the marshy countryside, common cranes have started breeding again in Scotland.
The crane, noted for its flamboyant breeding rituals and long, graceful physique, disappeared across Scotland in the middle ages, hunted and driven out of existence by changing farming practices. But for the first time in centuries, cranes have raised two chicks in north-east Scotland, with one chick born last year and a second this summer.
The re-establishment of this rare and elusive species has delighted conservationists. Stuart Housden, director of the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds Scotland, said: "These charming, elegant birds have a strong place in our myths and history and are a delight to see, particularly during the breeding season with their 'dancing' displays.
"They undertake regular migrations and small numbers have turned up on the east coast of Scotland in recent years, raising hopes of a recolonisation."
Their arrival so far north marks another significant milestone in the cranes' recolonisation of the UK after centuries of absence; there are small but surviving populations now established in Norfolk, Suffolk, Cambridgeshire and Yorkshire, with a specific reintroduction project also underway in Somerset. The last count in 2011 showed 17 breeding pairs.
The RSPB has refused to disclose their breeding sites because of anxieties about their vulnerability.
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