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Corncrake Information

The Corn Crake, Corncrake or Landrail (Crex crex) is a bird in the rail family. It breeds across Europe and Asia to western China, migrating to Africa in winter. It is a medium-sized crake with buff- or grey-streaked brownish-black upperparts, chestnut on the wings, and blue-grey underparts with rust-coloured and white bars on the flanks and undertail. The strong bill is flesh-toned, the iris is pale brown, and the legs and feet are pale grey. The juvenile is similar in plumage to the adult, and the downy chicks are black, as with all rails. There are no subspecies, although birds become slightly paler and greyer towards the east of the range. The male's call is a loud krek krek, from which the species derives its scientific name. The Corn Crake is larger than its closest relative, the African Crake, which shares its wintering range; that species is also darker-plumaged, and has a plain face.

The Corn Crake's breeding habitat is grassland, particularly hayfields, and it uses similar grassland on the wintering grounds. It is in steep decline across much of its breeding range because modern farming practices mean that nests and birds are destroyed by mowing or harvesting before breeding is finished. This secretive species builds a nest of grass leaves in a hollow in the ground and lays 6–14 rufous-blotched cream-coloured eggs. These hatch 19–20 days, and the black precocial chicks fledge after about five weeks. The Corn Crake is omnivorous, but mainly feeds on invertebrates, along with small frogs and mammals, and plant material including grass seed and cereal grain. Natural threats include introduced and feral mammals, large birds, and various parasites and diseases.

Although numbers have declined steeply in western Europe, this species is classed as Least Concern on the IUCN Red List because of its huge range and large, apparently stable, populations in Russia and Kazakhstan. Numbers in western China are more significant than previously thought, and conservation measures have increased numbers in some of the countries which had suffered the greatest losses. Despite its skulking nature, the loud call has ensured that this rail has been noted in literature, and garnered a range of local and dialect names.

Contents

Taxonomy

The rails are a bird family comprising nearly 150 species. Although the origins of the group are lost in antiquity, the largest number of species and the most primitive forms are found in the Old World, suggesting that this family originated there. The Corn Crake was first described by Linnaeus in his Systema Naturae in 1758 as Rallus crex,[2] but subsequently moved to the genus Crex, created by German naturalist and ornithologist Johann Matthäus Bechstein in 1803.[3] The taxonomy of the small crakes is complicated, but the closest relative of the Corn Crake is the African Crake, C. egregia, which has sometimes been given its own genus, Crecopsis, but is now more usually placed in Crex.[4][5] The Porzana crakes, particularly the Ash-throated Crake, Porzana albicollis, are near-relatives of the Crex genus.[6] The binomial name, Crex crex, from the Greek "κρεξ" is onomatopoeic, referring to the repetitive grating call.[7][8] The English names refer to this species nesting in dry hay or cereal fields, rather than the marshes used by most rails. The common name was formerly spelt as a single word, "Corncrake", but the official name is now "Corn Crake".[9]

Description

This is a medium-sized crake, 27–30 cm (10.6–11.8 in) long with a wingspan of 42–53 cm (16.5–20.9 in). Males weigh 165 g (5.8 oz) on average, with females slightly smaller and lighter averaging 145 g (5.1 oz). The adult male has the crown of its head and all its upperparts brown-black in colour, streaked with buff or grey. The wing coverts are a distinctive chestnut colour with some white bars. The face, neck and breast are blue-grey, apart from a pale brown streak from the base of the bill to behind the eye, the belly is white, and the flanks, and undertail are barred with chestnut and white. The strong bill is flesh-coloured, the irises is pale brown, and the legs and feet are pale grey. The female has warmer-toned upperparts and a narrower duller eye streak. Outside the breeding season, the upperparts are darker and the underparts less grey. The juvenile is like the adult, but has a yellow tone to the upperparts, and the grey of the underparts is replaced with buff-brown. The downy chicks are black, as with all rails. There are no subspecies; although birds become paler and greyer towards the east of the range, the change is clinal, and there is great individual variation in colour within all populations. Adults undergo a complete moult after breeding which is normally finished by late August or early September, prior to migration. There is a pre-breeding partial moult prior to return from Africa, mainly involving the plumage of the head, body and tail. Young birds have a head and body moult about five weeks after hatching.[10]

It is sympatric with the African Crake on the wintering grounds, but can be distinguished by its larger size. paler upperparts, tawny upperwing and different underparts pattern. In flight, it has longer, less rounded wings, and shallower wingbeats than its African relative, and shows a white leading edge to inner wing. In both its breeding and wintering ranges it is unlikely to be confused with any other rails, since sympatric species are smaller with white markings on the upperparts, different underparts patterns and a shorter bill. A flying Corn Crake can resemble a gamebird, but its chestnut wing pattern and dangling legs are diagnostic.[10]

Voice

Corn Crake Advertising call
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The male's advertising call is a loud, repetitive, grating krek krek normally delivered from a low perch with the bird's head and neck almost vertical and bill wide open. This call can be heard from 1.5 km (1 mi) away, and serves to establish the breeding territory, challenge intruding males and attract females. Early in the season, the call is given almost continuously at night and often during the day too.[10] It may be repeated more than 20,000 times a night, with a peak between midnight and 3 am.[11] As might be expected with this skulking species, the call has evolved to enable accurate localisation of the singing male.[12] The frequency reduces after a few weeks, but may intensify again near the end of the laying period before falling away towards the end of the breeding season. Slight differences mean that individual males can be distinguished by their calls.[10] Males can be attracted by mechanical imitations of their call. These can be produced by rubbing a piece of wood down a notched stick, or by flicking a credit card against a comb or zip-fastener.[11] The male also has a growling call, given with the bill shut and used during aggressive interactions.[10] The female Corn Crake may give a call similar to that of the male, but also has a distinctive barking sound, with a similar rhythm, but lacking the grating quality.[13] The female also has a high-pitched cheep, and a oo-oo-oo sound to call the chick. The chicks have a quiet peeick-peeick contact call and a chirp used to beg for food.[10] The Corn Crake is silent in Africa.[14] Because of the difficulty in seeing this species, it is usually censused by counting males calling between 2300 and 0300 hours;[15] the birds do not move at night, whereas they may wander up to 600 m (650 yd) during the day which could lead to double-counting if monitored then.[16] Identifying individual males suggests that just counting calling birds underestimates the true count by nearly 30%, and the discrepancy is likely to be greater since only 80% of males may call at all on a given night.[17]

Distribution and habitat

Hayfields are the preferred nesting habitat

The Corncrake breeds in Europe from Britain and Ireland east through Europe and central Russia to central Siberia, with a former natural range mainly between 41°N and 62°N;[18] There is also a sizable population in western China.[19] It nests only rarely in northern Spain and in Turkey; old claims of breeding in South Africa are incorrect, and result from misidentification of the eggs of the African Rail. It is a long-distance migrant, wintering mainly in Africa from Zaire and central Tanzania south to eastern South Africa. North of this area it is mainly seen on migration, but occasionally winters in North Africa and to the west and north of its core area in southeast Africa. Its status in Africa is not well known, but most of the South Africa population of about 2,000 birds occur in KwaZulu-Natal and the former Transvaal Province. The Corn Crake migrates along two main routes; a western route through Morocco and Algeria, and a more important flyway through Egypt. On passage, it has been recorded in most countries between its breeding and wintering ranges, including much of west Africa,[10] and those parts of southern Asia that lie between the east of its breeding range and Africa. Further afield, it has been recorded as a vagrant to Sri Lanka, Vietnam and Australia,[19] the Seychelles,[20] Bermuda,[21] Canada, the US, Greenland,[10] Iceland, the Faroes, The Azores, Madeira, and the Canary Islands. There are several nineteenth century records of birds being seen in western Europe between December and February, mainly from Britain and Ireland, when populations were much higher than now.[22]

The Corn Crake is a bird of open habitats, which would originally have included river meadows with tall grass and meadow plants including sedges and irises. It is now mainly found in cool moist grassland used for the production of hay, particularly moist traditional farmland with limited cutting or fertiliser use. It also utilises other treeless grasslands in mountains or taiga, on coasts or created by fire. Moister areas like wetlands edges may be used, but very wet habitats are avoided, as are open areas and those with vegetation more than 50 cm (20 in) tall or too dense to walk through. The odd bush or hedge may be used as calling post. Grassland which is not mown or grazed becomes too matted to be suitable, but locally crops such as cereals, peas, rape, clover or potatoes may be used. After breeding, adults move to taller vegetation such as common reed, iris, or nettles to moult, returning to the to hay and silage meadows for the second brood.[10] In China, flax was also used as a nest site.[19] Although males often sing in intensively managed grass or cereal crops, successful breeding is uncommon, and nests in the field margins or nearby fallow ground are more likely to succeed.[18] This is mainly a lowland species, but breeds up to 1,400 m (4,600 ft) altitude in the Alps, 2,700 m(8,600 ft) in China and 3,000 m (9,800 ft) in Russia.[19][22]

When wintering in Africa, the Corncrake occupies dry grassland and savanna habitats, occurring in vegetation 30–200 cm (1–6 ft) tall, including seasonally burnt areas and occasionally sedges or reed beds. It is also found on fallow and fields, uncut grass on airfields, and the edges of crops. It occurs at up to at least 1,750 m (5,700 ft) altitude in South Africa.[10] Although it sometimes occurs with the African Crake, that species normally prefers moister and shorter grassland habitats than does the Corn Crake.[23] On migration, in addition to the expected habitats, the Corn Crake may occur in wheatfields and at golf courses.[10]

Behaviour

This is a difficult bird to see in its breeding sites, usually being hidden by the vegetation, but will sometimes emerge into the open. Occasional birds may be very confiding; for five consecutive summers, an individual crake on Tiree entered a kitchen to feed on scraps, and a wintering Barra bird in 1999 would come for chicken feed once the intended recipients had finished.[11] In Africa, it is more secretive than African Crake, and, unlike its relative, it is rarely seen in the open, although it occasionally feeds on tracks or road sides. It is most active early and late in the day, after heavy rain and during light rain. If flushed by a dog, it will fly less than 50 m (150 ft), frequently landing behind a bush or thicket, and crouch on landing. Its typical flight is weak and fluttering, although less so than that of African Crake. For longer flights, such as migration, it has a steadier, stronger action with legs drawn up. If disturbed in the open, it will often run in a crouch for a short distance, with its neck stretched forward, then stand upright to watch the intruder. It walks with a high-stepping action, and can run swiftly through grass with its body horizontal and laterally flattened. It will swim if essential. When captured it may feign death, recovering at once if it sees a way out.[10]

The Corn Crake is solitary on the wintering grounds, with each bird occupying 4.2–4.9 ha (10.4–11.6 acres) at one time, although the total area used may be double that since an individual may move locally due to flooding, plant growth , or grass cutting, It may form flocks of up to 40 birds on migration, sometimes with Common Quails. Migration takes place at night, and flocks resting during the day may aggregate to hundreds of birds at favoured sites.[10]

Breeding

Until 1995, it was assumed that the Corn Crake is monogamous, but it transpires a male may have a shifting home range, and mate with two or more females, moving on when laying is almost complete. The male's territory can vary from 3–51 ha (7.5–126 acres), but averages 15.7 ha. (39 acres). The female has a much smaller range, averaging only 5.5 ha (13.5 acres). A male will challenge an intruder by calling with his wings drooped and his head pointing forward. Usually the stranger moves off, but if not the birds square up with head and neck raised and wings touching the ground. They then run around giving the growling call and lunging at each other. A real fight may ensue, with the birds leaping at each other and pecking, and sometimes kicking. Females play no part in defending the territory. The male has a brief courtship display; the neck is extended and the head held down, the tail is fanned, and the wings are spread with the tips touching the ground. He will attempt to approach the female from behind, and then leap on her back to copulate. The female may be offered food by the male during courtship. The nest is typically in grassland, sometimes in safer sites along a hedge, or near an isolated tree or bush, or in overgrown vegetation. Where grass is not tall enough at the start of the season, the first nest may be constructed in herby or marsh vegetation, with the second brood in hay.[10] The second nest may also be at a higher altitude that the first, to take advantage of the later-developing grasses.[1] The nest, built in a scrape or hollow in the ground, is made of woven coarse dry grass and other plants, and lined with finer grasses.[24]

The nest is 12–15 cm (5–6 in) in diameter and 3–4 cm (1–1.5 in) deep. The clutch is 6–14, usually 8–12 eggs; These are oval, slightly glossy, creamy or tinted with green, blue or grey, and blotched red-brown. They average 37 × 26 mm, (1.5 × 1.0 in) and weigh about 13–16 g, (0.46–0.56 oz),[10] of which 7% is shell.[25] The eggs are laid at daily intervals, but second clutches may sometimes have two eggs per day. Incubation is by the female only; her tendency to sit tight when disturbed, or wait until the last moment to flee, leads to many deaths during hay-cutting and harvesting. The eggs hatch together after 19–20 days, and the precocial chicks leave the nest within a day or two. They are fed by the female for three or four days, but can find their own food thereafter. The juveniles fledge after 34–38 days. The second brood is started about 42 days after the first, and the incubation period is slightly shorter at 16–18 days. The grown young may stay with the female until departure. Nest success in undisturbed sites is high at 80-90%, but much lower in fertilised meadows and on arable land. The method and timing of mowing is crucial; mechanized mowing can kill 38-95% of chicks in a given site, and losses average 50% of first brood chicks and less than 40% of second brood chicks.[10] The annual adult survival rate is under 30%,[25][26] although a typical lifespan for an adult may be 5–7 years.[27] The influence of weather on chick survival is limited; although chick growth was faster in dry or warm weather, the effects were relatively small. Unlike many precocial species, chicks are fed by their mother to a greater or lesser extent until they become independent, and this may cushion them from adverse conditions. The number of live chicks hatched is more important than the weather, with lower survival in large broods.[28]

Feeding

The Corn Crake is omnivorous, but mainly feeds on invertebrates, including earthworms, slugs and snails, spiders, beetles, dragonflies, grasshoppers and other insects. It is a predator of the Sitona weevils, which are a pest of legume crops.[10] and in the past consumed large amounts of the former grassland pests, leatherjackets and wireworms.[29] It will also eat small frogs and mammals, and plant material including grass seed and cereal grain. Its diet on the wintering grounds is generally similar, but includes locally available items such as termites, cockroaches and dung beetles. Food is taken from the ground, low-growing plants and from inside grass tussocks; the crake may search leaf litter with its bill, and run after active prey. Hunting is normally in cover, but particularly in the wintering areas it will occasionally feed on grassy tracks or dirt roads.[10] Indigestible material is regurgitated as 1 cm (0.5 in) pellets.[22] Chicks are fed mainly on animal food, and when fully grown they may fly with the parents up to 6.4 km (4 mi) to visit supplementary feeding areas. As with other rails, grit is swallowed to help break up food in the stomach.[10][30]

Predators and parasites

The White Stork will kill chicks exposed by mowing

Predators on the breeding grounds include feral and domestic cats, introduced American mink, feral ferrets otters and red foxes, and birds including the Common Buzzard and Hooded Crows.[10] In Lithuania, the introduced Raccoon Dog has also been recorded as taking birds. When chicks are exposed by rapid mowing, they may be taken by large birds including the White Stork, harriers and other birds of prey, gulls and corvids.[31] However, nests and broods are rarely attacked, as reflected in the high breeding success on undisturbed sites. A Black Sparrowhawk has been recorded as killing this species in Gabon.[10]

The widespread fluke Prosthogonimus ovatus, which lives in the oviducts of birds has been recorded in this species,[32] as have the parasitic worm Plagiorchis elegans,[33] the larvae of parasitic flies,[34] and hard ticks of the genera Haemaphysalis and Ixodes.[35]

During the reintroduction of Corn Crakes to England in the 2003 breeding season, enteritis and ill heath in pre-release birds was due to bacteria of a pathogenic Campylobacter species. Subsequently, microbiology tests were done to detect infected pre-release birds and to find the source of the bacteria in their environment.[36]

Status

The move from manual to mechanised hay-making has seriously threatened the European breeding population.

Until 2010, despite its huge breeding range estimated at 12,400,000 km2 (4,800,000 mi2), the Corn Crake was classified as Near Threatened on the IUCN Red List due to serious declines in Europe, but improved monitoring in Russia indicates that expected losses there have not occurred and numbers have remained stable or possibly increased. It is therefore now classed as Least Concern, since the major populations in Russia and Kazakhstan are not expected to change much in the short term. There are an estimated 1.3–2 million breeding pairs in Europe, three-quarters of which are in European Russia, and a further 515,000–1,240,000 pairs in Asiatic Russia; the total Eurasian population has been estimated at between 5.45 and 9.72 million individuals. In much of the west of its range, there have been long-term declines which are expected to continue, although conservation measures have enabled numbers to grow in several countries, including a five-fold increase in Finland, and a doubling in the UK.[1] In the Netherlands, 33 territories in 1996, increased to at least 500 in 1998.[37]

The breeding Corncrake population had started to decline in the 19th century, but the process gained pace after World War II.[38] The main cause of the steep declines in much or Europe is the loss of nests and chicks from early mowing. Haymaking dates have moved forward in the past century due to faster crop growth, made possible by land drainage and the use of fertilisers, and the move from manual grass-cutting using scythes , to mechanical mowers, at first horse-drawn and later pulled by tractors. Mechanisation also means that large areas can be cut quickly, leaving the crake with no alternative sites to raise either a first brood, if the habitat has gone, or a replacement brood if the first is lost.[31] The pattern of mowing, typically in a circular pattern from the outside of a field to its centre gives little chance of escape for the chicks, which are also exposed to potential predators. Adults can often escape the mowers, although some incubating females sit tight on the nest, with fatal results.[10]

Mrs Beeton's recipe

Loss of habitat is the other major threat to the Corn Crake. Apart from the reduced suitability of drained and fertilised silage fields compared to traditional hay meadows, in western Europe the conversion of grassland to arable has been aided by subsidies, and further east the collapse of collective farming has led to the abandonment and lack of management of much land in this important breeding area.[31] More localised threats include floods in spring,[39] and disturbance by roads or wind farms.[31] This bird is good eating (Mrs Beeton recommended roasting four on a skewer),[40] More significant is the loss of many birds, up to 14,000 a year, in Egypt, where migrating birds are captured in nets set for the Quail with which they often migrate.[11] Although this may account for 0.5–2.7% of the European population, the losses to this form of hunting are less than when the targeted species were more numerous and predictable.[41]

Most European countries have taken steps to conserve the Corn Crake and produce national management policies; there is also an overall European action plan. The focus of conservation effort is to monitor populations and ecology and to improve survival, principally through changing the timing and method of hay harvesting.[1] Later cutting gives time for breeding to be completed, and leaving uncut strips at the edges of fields and cutting from the centre outwards reduce the casualties from mowing.[10] Implementing these changes is predicted to stop the population decline if the measures are applied on a sufficiently large scale.[42] Reduction of illegal hunting, and protection in countries where this is still a quarry species are also targets.[1] Reintroduction is being attempted in England, and breeding sites are scheduled for protection in many other countries.[43] Where breeding sites impinge on urban areas, there are cost implications, estimated in one German study at several million euros per corncrake.[44] The Corncrake does not appear to be seriously threatened on its wintering grounds, and may benefit from deforestration which creates more open habitats.[23]

In culture

Most rails are secretive wetland birds that have made little cultural impact, but as a formerly common farmland birds with its loud nocturnal calling sometimes leading to disturbed sleep for rural dwellers, the Corn Crake has acquire a variety of folk names, and commemoration in literature.[11]

Names

Parents with a chick

The favoured name for this species among naturalists has changed over the years, with "Landrail" and variants of "Corncrake" being preferred at various times. "Crake Gallinule" also had a period of popularity between 1768 and 1813.[45] The originally Scottish "Corne Crake" was popularised by Thomas Bewick, who used this term in his 1797 A History of British Birds.[46] Other Scottish names include Corn "Scrack" and "Quailzie"; the latter term, like King of the Quail,[46] Grass quail,[47] and the French roi de caille refer to the association with the small gamebird.[11] Another name, "Daker", has been variously interpreted as onomatopoeic,[48] or derived from the Old Norse Ager-hoene, meaning "Cock of the field";[46] variants include Drake, Drake Hen and Gorse Drake.[49]

In literature

Corn Crakes are the subject of three stanzas of the seventeenth century poet Andrew Marvell's Upon Appleton House, written in 1651 about the North Yorkshire country estate of Thomas Fairfax. The narrator depicts the unfortunate scene of a mower cutting the grass, before his "whistling scythe" collides with an "unfeathered rail". The mower draws out the scythe "all bloody from its breast" and "does the stroke detest". It continues with a stanza demonstrates the problematic nature of the Corn Crake's nesting habits:[50]

Unhappy birds! What does it boot To build below the grass' root; When lowness is unsafe as height, And chance o'ertakes, what scapeth spite?

John Clare, the nineteenth-century English poet based in Northamptonshire, wrote The Landrail, a semi-comic piece which is primarily about the difficulty of seeing Corn Crakes - as opposed to hearing them. In the fourth verse he exclaims: Tis like a fancy everywhere/A sort of living doubt. Clare wrote about Corn Crakes in his prose works too, and his writings help to clarify the distribution of this rail when it was far more widespread than now.[51]

References

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  2. ^ Linnaeus, Carolus (1758) (in Latin). Systema naturae per regna tria naturae, secundum classes, ordines, genera, species, cum characteribus, differentiis, synonymis, locis. Tomus I. Editio decima, reformata.. Holmiae:Laurentii Salvii. p. 153.
  3. ^ Bechstein, Johann Matthäus (1803) (in German). Ornithologisches Taschenbuch von und für Deutschland oder kurze Beschreibung aller Vogel Deutschlands, vol 2. Leipzig: Richter. p. 336.
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  6. ^ Livezey (1998) p. 2134
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Categories: IUCN Red List least concern species | Animals described in 1758 | Birds of Asia | Birds of Europe | Crex

 

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