Last night I went to Eldernell...

...to hear the corncrakes sing.

A century ago the corncrake's song was heard in grassy fields in every county in the UK but now it is restricted to some Scottish islands (eg Islay, Coll, Tiree, the Uists) and a few pairs on mainland Scotland and occasionally in England and northern Ireland.  And in the same period the song of the corncrake has been lost from much of Europe - eastern Europe is now the best place to listen for its song.

Now I call it a song (because it is!) but we aren't in the realm of song thrush, nightingale or blackcap here.  The corncrake's song is a rasping sound a little like running your finger over the teeth of a comb.  Its scientific name, Crex crex, rather sums it up!  And the bird itself is no looker either!  It's a small brown moorhen-like bird which you never see because it hides so well in the long grass!

A few years ago we teamed up with Whipsnade Zoo and Natural England to reintroduce corncrakes into England and chose the RSPB's nature reserve at the Nene Washes, near Peterborough, as the release site because it is a large area of suitable grassland for corncrakes to feed and nest.  Young corncrakes, bred in captivity by very skilled Whipsnade staff are brought to the Washes in summer and then released into the wild.  Sounds simple doesn't it?  Of course, it's a complicated project which has had its ups and downs but has resulted in hundreds of young corncrakes being released over the last few years.  Then it's up to the corncrakes themselves to make the Nene Washes their home and then, and this is amazing, head off to the other side of the Sahara before flying back to the Nene Washes the next spring!

So I parked at the small car park at Eldernell and walked west along the bank before sitting down to listen.  Sedge warblers were singing in the gathering gloom and mallards and gadwalls were quacking.  A snipe 'drummed' overhead.  A shoveler made its characteristic 'tok-tok-tok' call.  Lapwings and redshanks.  A pheasant. Cows. A heron. A fox. A tawny owl. The quiet countryside is actually very noisy!

And then, from the dark, I thought I heard a corncrake - but I wasn't sure.  Was it just a funny distant duck?  And then I was sure - the corncrake got into its stride and whilst it was distant I was now listening to a sound that was commonplace a century ago but very unusual now. Crex crex, crex crex, crex crex!

That singing bird had travelled to Africa, and then back, to avoid our winter.  It may have run between an elephants legs in a marsh in Kenya whilst we were shivering in the cold snap in February. But all the time it 'knew' that the Nene Washes were its home and it made its way back here to land in the long grass and fill the air with its song.  Not the most beautiful song in the world (except, presumably to a female corncrake) but a most amazing experience - to sit listening to something that has been absent for a century and know that it is possible because of hard work by a large number of conservationists and even harder work by a small moorhen-like bird.