The first wild crane egg in western Britain for 400 years has hatched but the chick failed to survive its first few days, conservationists have said.
The common crane egg laid at the Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust’s Slimbridge Wetland Centre had been given a round-the-clock guard to protect it from egg thieves, and staff and volunteers reported two fleeting glimpses of a chick next to its mother on May 26.
The parents, Chris and Monty, who are part of a programme to reintroduce the species to western Britain centuries after they became extinct in the area, stayed on the nest through days of rain before abandoning it on May 31.
Once it was clear they would not return, experts inspected the nest and found the remains of one hatched egg shell, but no sign of the chick.
It is not clear what happened to it, but it could have fallen victim to the bad weather or a predator.
Despite the failure, conservationists said the adult cranes showed strong parenting skills and could successfully raise the first wild crane chick next summer.
