A 'globally unique' Norfolk conservation project aims to bring one of Britain's rarest birds back from the brink of extinction.

Barely a dozen female ruffs cling on across the UK, while less than 1,000 birds migrate to our shores each winter.

Now a landowner has revealed details of an ambitious bid to boost the bird's numbers.

Andrew Crean has applied for planning permission to build aviaries and a warden's house at Marsh Farm at Burnham Deepdale, near Hunstanton.

They will be used to rear birds bred by the Max Planck Institute in Bavaria, Germany, to be released into the wild.  

The first consignment of ruff is due to arrive this month and the birds will be quarantined at Banham Zoo for three months before moving to their new home.

A planning statement says: "The project is unique in global terms and is ongoing with no planned end date – with funding provisions and partner commitments also being ongoing with no planned end date.

"In fact, the project is highly likely to be the catalyst for further such conservation works with other waders and other species."

The Burnham Deepdale project, which will be run in conjunction with the University of East Anglia and the Zoological Society of East Anglia, expects to release up to 100 ruff a year. 

It will also study the sites they use for their extravagant courtship, where rival males display the plumage which gives them their name to would-be mates in a grassy area known as a lek.

Mr Crean hopes to create suitable "lekking" areas on his farm so the birds will be able to breed successfully.

The planning statement says the ruff was once a widespread breeding species in eastern England but became practically extinct as such after the middle of the 19th century.

After this pairs were noted in Lincolnshire in 1882, Durham in 1902, Lancashire in 1910 and Norfolk in 1922.

Breeding did not occur again until 1963 on the Ouse Washes after a 41-year gap. Breeding has been sporadic at best in eastern England since then.

The Thetford-based British Trust for Ornithology said the latest records, from 2020, show one male lekking to one female in Lincolnshire, five males lekking on two different sites in Scotland, two males lekking in the Orkneys and one in the Outer Hebrides.

While now rare in the UK because of the loss of its favoured wetland habitats, the ruff is still numerous in Scandinavia.