Corncrake
A shy summer visitor, the corncrake now only nests in the more peaceful meadowlands of the rural north and west - driven from its former range by increasingly mechanized farming.
On warm summer evenings at the turn of the century, the monotonous, rasping crek crek of the elusive country folk, so numerous were these birds. Large numbers of shy visitor from Africa would arrive to make their summer home among thick stands of grass and rough vegetation throughout Britain. But during the last 70 years or so the corncrake has slowly and dramatically disappeared from most of its breeding haunts and is now only regularly heard in the west of Scotland, the Scottish Isles, north-west Wales and, above all, in rural Ireland, where about 1500 pairs still nest each year.
Despite its name, the corncrake prefers damp meadows with plenty of nettles and other tall weeds, to fields of ripe corn. Here it spends most of the day skulking among the vegetation, perfectly camouflaged by its brown, black-streaked plumage. About the size of a moorhen and resembling a slim, short-necked gamebird, it is, like other members of the rail family, more commonly heard than seen. Shy and secretive by nature, the corncrake cranes its neck above the grass stems to reconnoiter the scene before emerging from cover. Of approached, it quickly vanishes, creeping stealthily from one patch of cover to another. Only as a last resort will it take to the air to escape danger, as its bright chestnut wing patches, and dangling legs trailing behind its short tail, clearly identify the bird. Under cover of failing light, though, at dusk it becomes bolder and more active, searching among the grass for beetles, grasshoppers, slugs, snails, earthworms, leaves and seeds.
