Lindy Rodwell

Portrait of Lindy Rodwell on a private farm in Kwazulu-Natal, South Africa.

Bugeranus carunculatus, the wattled crane, is the biggest and most wetland- dependent crane in Africa.

Rodwell with electrocuted wattled crane. Power lines are one of the major causes of wattled crane mortality.

Rodwell (left) and Brent Coverdale (centre) talk to farmer Phillip Sbongseni. Farmers sometimes poison the cranes.

Pair of wattled cranes. In South Africa, they breed on private farms, so farmers need to be involved in their protection.

Brent Coverdale and Lindy Rodwell observing wattled cranes, which are critically endangered in South Africa.

Rodwell’s Crane Custodian programme creates awareness among landowners about the importance of the cranes.

Rodwell and Coverdale measure an egg of a wattled crane. The cranes lay one or two eggs, but only raise one chick.

Wattled crane. “Cranes are the flagship species for an ecosystem on which we are entirely dependent,” Rodwell says.

Rodwell attends an educational session given by her two co-workers to the Nkosi family. (Blue crane pictured is not real.)

Rodwell demonstrates how this captive wattled crane is totally imprinted, i.e., the bird completely identifies with humans.

In Johannesburg, at a crane-breeding centre, the birds are raised by people in costume in order to prevent imprinting.

Since cranes will only raise one chick, the extra egg is taken, incubated, hatched and raised at a breeding facility.

Rodwell (centre) with co-workers David Nkosi (left) and Samson Phakathi bird-watch from a specially designed hut.

Rodwell, David Nkosi (left) and Samson Phakathi discuss the status of wetlands across the whole of southern Africa.

Carlos Bento (far right) in the Zambesi River Delta. Bento researches the link between flooding and crane breeding.