It is about halfway through the corncrake season and numbers are down on last year. So far, just 12 calling male corncrakes have been heard around the islands, compared to 20 at this time last year (with a total of 32 at the end of the season). Six of this year's corncrakes have been heard in Westray, with one each in West Mainland, East Mainland, South Ronaldsay, Shapinsay, Sanday and Flotta.
Orkney is one of the few remaining UK territories of the corncrake and the RSPB works to provide habitat protection for each bird located. We are dependant on public reports of corncrakes, especially this year with numbers being lower. If you hear, or think you have heard a corncrake, please call Amy Liptrot on 01856 850 029 or email amy.liptrot@rspb.org.uk . Please don't assume we know about a calling bird or worry you might have identified the call wrongly.
Hear a recording of a corncrake here.
The main reason for the decline in numbers of corncrakes has been increasingly mechanised and intensive farming methods, with birds being killed when fields are mown for hay or silage. The RSPB's Corncrake Initiative offers help to farmers with land within 250 meters of a calling male, giving payments for voluntary delayed cutting or grazing of the grass, or to mow in a 'corncrake-friendly' pattern: from the inside of the fields outwards, giving the birds more of chance to escape.
Over the last few weeks, I've been carrying out a full survey of Orkney for corncrakes. The survey is carried out between midnight and 3am, listening from the car window for the birds' call. Despite not discovering many corncrakes this year, I have heard the noises of birds including snipe, cuckoo and quail. At this time of year it barely gets dark here. I took this photo last night at 1.15am (the darkest time of the night):