Fresh hope for crane chicks at WWT Slimbridge

Staff said they were hopeful cranes would lay more eggs before the end of spring

Experts at the Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust at Slimbridge have said they are optimistic rare cranes will still breed there after a nesting attempt failed.

A pair of the birds, known as Ruby and Bart, laid eggs earlier this month, but staff said the nest had been abandoned.

The birds were hand-reared and released as part of the Great Crane Project, which reintroduced nearly 100 cranes to the Somerset Levels and Moors.

Staff said there was "still time" for chicks to be born this year.

James Lees, from the trust, said: "We've got four pairs [of cranes] knocking around in different parts of Slimbridge. It's a big area and we've still got hopes.

'Plenty of time'

"We've seen a lot of nesting behaviour from them, we've seen them building various nests or nest platforms, and lots of displaying, courting and mating.

"There is still plenty of time and we might well see some young cranes before the end of this spring."

For five years, The Great Crane Project has hand-reared chicks and released them 60 miles (97km) away on the Somerset Moors and Levels.

Several pairs of the birds have returned to Slimbridge to nest.

Another pair of cranes - Christine and Monty - have nested at Slimbridge for the past two years, and last year managed to hatch the first chicks in western Britain for 400 years.

However, the young were killed by predators before they were fully grown.

Cranes were commonplace in parts of the West in the 1600s but became extinct across the UK.