Back from the brink

Lifestyle – The corncrake’s distinctive call once resonated throughout rural Ireland but the ground-nesting bird has been in decline for decades due to changes in farming, including mechanisation and the earlier cutting of silage. A group set up to improve breeding conditions for the corncrake is working with farmers and the public along the Western seaboard, including Galway, and the approach is working as STEPHEN CORRIGAN learns.

The call of a corncrake, a sound once synonymous with the Irish countryside, has largely disappeared over the last 50 years or so – with the exception of a small number of locations along the Galway, Mayo and Donegal coasts.

It’s in these places, at locations including Claddaghduff, Clifden, Inishbofin, Omey Island and Turbot Island, that a new group aiming to turn the tide on the declining corncrake population will be focusing its attention in the coming years.

Corncrake/Traonach Life has been set up with the overall objective of improving the conservation status of the corncrake throughout Ireland. Its Community Engagement Officer Pat Fitzmaurice says that, over the next five years, the group has the loose aim of increasing numbers by 20%.

Funded by the EU the group is working in conjunction with Departments of Housing, Heritage and Local Government, and Agriculture, as well as the National Parks and Wildlife Service, GMIT, Údarás na Gaeltachta and Fota Wildlife Park.

It’s dealing with around 1,000 hectares of land along the Western seaboard where it hopes to optimise conditions for an iconic bird with its unmistakable sound – reaching up to 96 decibels. By comparison, an ambulance siren is around 130 decibels. The birds’ noise is all the more significant given that they’re at their most vocal between the hours of 10pm and 3am, laughs Pat.

“The aim of the project is to work with landowners – working alongside farmers for the targeted management of corncrake habitat.

“The corncrake was once present all over Ireland, but it has been in drastic decline since 1948. It’s very vulnerable because it’s a ground-nesting bird – as farming advanced and people began cutting silage earlier, the corncrake wasn’t getting the opportunity to get its nest down,” he explains.

A whole generation has missed out on the corncrake, he continues, with only people of a certain age remembering its distinctive sound and appearance, while also lamenting its absence in recent years.

“The change in farming practice has been the most detrimental factor, but there are areas like the Shannon Callows around Eyrecourt and East Galway where flooding events have wiped out the corncrake population,” he says.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.

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