it's a f******g crane

16/10/09
somewhere north of stourton(staffs)
i still cant believe it,a crane.just listen to those words, c r a n e.
my dad was driving along the a449 south towards stourton(still dont know exact location of where the bird was) just after the lawnswood road there is a large gap in the headgeline, and in the stubble field was a crane,a bloody crane,in a small field(well thats not entirerly true). for the entire 15 secs i saw the bird i was in shock. the long legs,the bushy tail,it was just a crane.having just seen the bird and not knowing the exact location of the bird at the time i was sruck with a question,get the news out or get more details(my dad wouldent stop to loo for it and get some confirmation photos because we had my sister in the car who isnt a birder).i quicky put the news out saying i will give more details on the location once i have it.got a call from brian almost imidiatly seeing if i had any more details at the time,and i told him all i knew,which wasent a lot. after a bit i agreed to call him back with more details once i had them and the hard task of convincing my dad to take me back.after about 15 mins i got to my nans(closest place to the crane).i scurried around looking for a map but there wasent one so i went to my dad and asked where it was(he's a walking map-book).he told me some details, i wrote them down(i couldent remember them in that state) and got them to brian.after about 30 mins i convinced my dad to take me back and it was getting dark.
well we got there, it was very very dark,but it was very obvious that the bird wasent in the field. as most of you may know the a449 is a very busy road and one wonders why in hell would the crane land there,unless it was bloody knackered. well i guess we will never know...
i have sent a description form to the staffs recorder through the birdtrack website but i dont think it sent propperly so tonight i am doing it manually through my own email.dont have any pics of the bird but a pic of the field on the return visit:



the pic has been modded to make it lighter
MB