During my placement with RSPB NI’s Giving Corncrake a Home (GCaH) project, I’ve learned a lot about the dramatic decline of the Corncrake, a secretive bird whose numbers have been devastated in Northern Ireland by changes in agricultural practices. Corncrakes depend on early ground cover, like hay meadows, for breeding and shelter. Unfortunately, the switch to silage farming in the 1950’s eliminated much of their habitat, leading to their disappearance from Northern Ireland.
For over a decade, the GCaH project has focused on reversing this trend, starting on Rathlin Island. By planting nettle beds, a vital early cover habitat, the project hopes to create safe spaces for Corncrakes to nest and thrive once again. Due to their secretive nature, Corncrakes are best surveyed by counting the calling males. This is because they project a loud, rasping call during the breeding season, to establish territory and attract a mate. On the contrary, females remain silent, so are very difficult to accurately record. In 2024, three males were heard calling on Rathlin, with an unknown number of females.
A rare glimpse of a Corncrake in a nettle bed
The GCaH project aims to create more early cover habitats on Rathlin Island, by planting rhizome nettle beds extracted from mainland Northern Ireland. Nettles are an ideal Corncrake refuge since they grow early in spring and aren’t too dense, allowing the birds to move freely within them.
The nettles are sourced from willing landowners and farmers, collected during digs organised by the GCaH team, and all this is only possible thanks to the combined efforts of staff and volunteers.
Before (taken in March 2023)
After (taken in 2024)
Community outreach to build a network of volunteers was a key part of my role, attending fairs by local colleges and universities. If you’re interested in attending one of our planned nettle digs, check out below for an idea of how the day might unfold:
1. The brief: we give volunteers an outline of the day ahead and how the work we will be doing helps the Corncrake. We also give a demonstration of the different equipment used during the dig, and a quick run through of health and safety procedures to make sure everyone stays safe while we work.
2. The action: Then we get started on the nettle digging and root collection. This is done in various steps:
Up next is the lunch break, allowing everyone an opportunity to get to know each other better before we start onto another session of nettle digging.
3. Washing and bagging the roots: The session is finished off with hosing down the dirty roots to remove the soil. This makes them lighter for transporting, but also removes unwanted seeds and invertebrates.
During each of these digs, we aim to collect enough nettle roots to fill a two-tonne bag, which is a remarkable achievement, and these roots will then go on to create ideal habitats for Corncrake on Rathlin Island this spring.
As you can tell, my time with the GCaH project so far has been full of many valuable experiences shared with many great people. I look forward to the rest of the digging season and anticipate the hopeful return of the Corncrake to Rathlin in the spring.
If you’d like to join us in creating habitats for Corncrake, whether through volunteering or if you potentially have a site of nettles that we can use, please reach out to us at corncrakeni@rspb.org.uk Together, we can make a lasting difference!