We have good news for bird watchers and folklorists in Ireland, where a pair of cranes have been spotted nesting on a rewetted peat bog in the country’s Midlands for the first time in centuries.

The giant bird, which is a popular motif in Irish folklore and was a common pet during medieval times, could be returning to the island after an absence of more than 300 years, reports the BBC. Conservationists hope the pair could be the first of the species to breed in Ireland in centuries.

The cranes were spotted last year, but their exact location remains confidential to protect them. The land belongs to former peat producer Bord na Móna, who has been rehabilitating thousands of hectares of boglands by rewetting the drained sites.

“While we have these birds coming to Ireland during the winter, we generally haven’t seen them in the breeding season,” said Mark McCorry, the company’s lead ecologist. “So last year, when they were discovered, they were the first pair that were in a nest during the breeding season. So it’s really a great indication that they look like they’re ready to re-colonise Ireland again.”

The average adult common crane measures about 1.2m (4ft) in height, with a wingspan of over 7ft. They often appear in folklore tales, where they are fabled for their complex “display” behavior which includes bows, pirouettes, and bobs. While they were once common in Ireland, the destruction of their habitat saw them become extinct between the 16th and 17th centuries. The recently spotted pair of cranes offers hope that the region will once again see the birds soar through the Irish skies.

“We’re hoping that as conditions improve in Ireland perhaps we’ll see more of them come back, especially if they do breed and rear chicks,” said Niall Hatch, of Birdwatch Ireland, the country’s largest conservation organization. “The hope would be that those chicks in future years will return and start to breed in the same areas as well and the population might build up.”