In August last year, the RSPB launched Corncrake Calling, a four year project supported by the The National Lottery Heritage Fund, to save the bird from extinction in the UK.
Once a familiar country bird that kept people awake at night with its rasping call, it has all but disappeared from mainland Britain with only around 1,000 individuals now found in Scotland.
The corncrake is a small, secretive bird about the size of a moorhen, with pale yellowish-brown plumage that is streaked black. The flank has red and grey bars, and the wing is red overall. The face and breast are blue-grey except for the chin and throat which are whiter, and there is brownish stripe through the eye. Males and females are similar although the female has less grey, while juveniles have fewer bars and streaks.
It has a large breeding range covering Europe to central Siberia with most of the estimated 1.5 million breeding pairs found in Russia. It winters in Africa where it inhabits dry grassland and savanna, as well as sedges and reed beds.
Corncrakes were first described by Carl Linnaeus in 1758 as Rallus crex. The exact etymology of Rallus is unknown, while crex is from the Ancient Greek ‘krex’ which is onomatopoeic and references the bird’s grating call. However, although a bird called krex is written about by many Greek authors, its identity has not been confirmed and it’s almost certainly not a corncrake.
For example, according to Aristotle, the krex attacks both the adults and young of a variety of birds including owls, blackbirds, and orioles, while Herodotus says it is the size of an ibis.
In Aristotle’s History of Animals, in which he investigates the existing known facts about animals and attempts to classify species into groups, the corncrake is called Ortygomētra (ὀρτυγομήτρα) which translates as ‘quail leader’ or ‘mother of quails’.
Because, although, the book contains many accurate observations, some of Aristotles ‘facts’ are misconceptions, or perhaps misinterpretations, with his remarks about quails (and corncrakes) being one example:
When the quails come from abroad, they have no leaders, but when they migrate hence, the glottis (Glōttis) flits along with them, as does also the landrail (Kychramos), and the eared owl (Ōtos), and the corncrake. The corncrake calls them in the night, and when the birdcatchers hear the croak of the bird in the nighttime they know that the quails are on the move. The landrail is like a marsh bird, and the glottis has a tongue that can project far out of its beak. The eared owl is like an ordinary owl, only that it has feathers about its ears; by some it is called the night-raven.
Although the identity of the ‘glottis’ has never been confirmed, other Greek writers have given details about Ortygomētra, such as its shape which resembles marsh birds, its long legs, and timid nature, strongly suggesting it’s a corncrake.
Of course, corncrakes don’t lead quails on their migration, but they are known to form flocks with them on migration which presumably led to the assumption that they were escorting them.
The idea that a corncrake can be found at the head of a bevy or covey of quails lives on in its name in various languages, including Guión de codornices (Spanish), Re di quaglie (Italian), and Wachtelkönig (German), all of which translate as ‘king of quails’.
According to some ancient writers, such as Hesychius of Alexandria, a Greek grammarian from the 5th or 6th century AD, Ortygomētra was not even a separate species but just a big quail, and this is not the only instance where the two species have been confused.
For example, in, Psalm 105, v 40 the King James Version gives:
The people asked, and he brought quails, and satisfied them with the bread of heaven.
‘Quails’, in this case, was translated from the Greek ὀρτυγομήτρα, which as we have seen means corncrake.
The first record of the corncrake in the British Isles can be found in William Turner’s Avium praecipuarum, quarum apud Plinium et Aristotelem mentio est, brevis et succincta historia or The Principal Birds of Aristotle and Pliny, in which he describes and adds his own observations to the birds known to Pliny and Aristotle. Published in 1544, It was the first printed book to focus solely on birds.
Turner calls the corncrake Crex but also gives it the English name, ‘Daker Hen’ and writes, “I have not seen or heard it anywhere in England, save in Northum-berland alone”. He also describes its cry, “in spring as well as early summer makes no other cry among the corn and flax than crex crex.”
In A Dictionary of English and Folk-Names of British Birds, by Harry Kirke Swann and published in 1913, it’s suggested that Daker refers to the unsteady flight of the bird, and that ‘ducker’ meaning to stagger or totter is a well-known word in Lincolnshire. Another suggestion is that ‘daker hen’ is derived from ‘t’ acre-hen’ (the acre or land hen).
However, in Charles Swainson’s Provincial Names and Folk-Lore of British Birds published in 1885, he says that daker is most likely onomatopoeic, from the corncrake’s call. An alternative suggestion in the same book is that it is derived from the Norwegian ‘ager-hoene’ (cock-of-the-field) or the Danish ‘aker-rixe’ (king of the acre).
Half a century after The Principal Birds was published, the corncrake is included in the list of birds found in Cornwall from Richard Carew’s 1602 Survey of Cornwall, although there is no evidence that it ever bred in the county, while a year later it is mentioned as a breeding bird in The Description of Penbrokshire by George Owen.
Many records followed from almost every county in the UK. There is even a report of a sighting on Hampstead Heath in 1898.
It was so ubiquitous in the UK that there is a roasted corncrake recipe in Mrs Beeton’s Book of Household Management published in 1861. Here, it was treated it as a game bird – note the season’s date from August the 12th – and served with fried breadcrumbs and gravy. Mrs Beeton observes that it arrives from Africa at the same time as the quail, and notes that the bird is seldom seen, which is also the subject of John Clare’s comic 1832 poem The Land Rail.
How sweet and pleasant grows the way
Through summer time again
While Landrails call from day to day
Amid the grass and grainWe hear it in the weeding time
When knee deep waves the corn
We hear it in the summers prime
Through meadows night and mornAnd now I hear it in the grass
That grows as sweet again
And let a minutes notice pass
And now tis in the grainTis like a fancy everywhere
A sort of living doubt
We know tis something but it neer
Will blab the secret outIf heard in close or meadow plots
It flies if we pursue
But follows if we notice not
The close and meadow throughBoys know the note of many a bird
In their birdnesting bounds
But when the landrails noise is heard
They wonder at the soundsThey look in every tuft of grass
Thats in their rambles met
They peep in every bush they pass
And none the wiser getAnd still they hear the craiking sound
And still they wonder why
It surely cant be under ground
Nor is it in the skyAnd yet tis heard in every vale
An undiscovered song
And makes a pleasant wonder tale
For all the summer longThe shepherd whistles through his hands
And starts with many a whoop
His busy dog across the lands
In hopes to fright it upTis still a minutes length or more
Till dogs are off and gone
Then sings and louder than before
But keeps the secret onYet accident will often meet
The nest within its way
And weeders when they weed the wheat
Discover where they layAnd mowers on the meadow lea
Chance on their noisy guest
And wonder what the bird can be
That lays without a nestIn simple holes that birds will rake
When dusting on the ground
They drop their eggs of curious make
Deep blotched and nearly roundA mystery still to men and boys
Who know not where they lay
And guess it but a summer noise
Among the meadow hay
As a familiar country bird, the corncrake was given a wide variety of nicknames including creck, cracker, craker, bean crake, bean cracker, corn drake, grass drake, grass quail, grass crake, meadow drake, land drake, land-hen, gorse duck, and corn scrack. Many of these refer to its breeding habitat of dry fields rather than the marshes used by most other members of its family. There were also several strange beliefs held about the corncrake with some believing it didn’t migrate at all and either went into a state of torpor or turned into a water rail over winter.
In 1803, the corncrake was moved to its own genus crex and given the name Crex pratenis, the specific name of which is derived from the Latin for ‘meadow’. However, in 1842 due to the principle of priority, it was renamed Crex crex.
It is the corncrake’s habit of breeding in fields that unfortunately has led to its demise. In the late 19th century farmers switched from producing corn, the generic name for grain, to hay which was harvested earlier and so didn’t give corncrakes time to raise their chicks.
Technological advances in farm machinery saw the invention of mowing machines which mowed in a spiral from the outside of a field to the centre. To escape the blades, the birds would run to the uncut grass in the middle of the field until the mower caught up with them.
An article published in the Guardian in 1947 describes how a corncrake’s nest and five chicks were destroyed in this way.
As part of the Corncrake Calling project, the RSPB is working with landowners to encourage corncrake-friendly farming, engaging with the public to educate people about corncrakes via nature walks, talks, and exhibitions, and developing action plans in partnership with key stakeholders to develop best practice and policies. You can find out more and how to get involved here.
One Response
What a fascinating slice of history.
My father had a set of cigarette cards featuring British Birds and their nests and I distincltly remember a corncrake on them. I knew about all of the other birds but didn’t know of the corncrake but remember my father telling me how they used to be common. I’ve never seen one and how sad that yet again humans are responsible for our wonderful wildlife disappearing.