Crex! Crex! Crex! Crex!

The Corncrake was easy, the chips were difficult.

I didn’t ‘need’ a bag of chips but I did want a bag of chips.  Yesterday was a lovely sunny day and I’d spent quite a lot of it out in the sun enjoying nature. I was listening, unsuccessfully, for Turtle Doves at a local farm before 6am, and then writing for the rest of the morning.  The early afternoon was spent writing, re-writing and watching bits of racing on the TV (even though it was only Flat racing, rather than proper racing). Instead of watching what was probably a decent FA Cup Final I headed out to record plants for Plantlife (more on this later). In fact, our plan was to set off at kick-off time for the short drive to the plant recording site, but we were a few minutes ‘late’ and by the time I turned on the car radio Arsenal were 2-0 behind. I was home just after the match finished in extra time, doing a bit more work at the computer. So it was 9pm when we set off to listen for corncrakes and a bag of chips seemed just the sort of thing that would set me up for the arduous task of listening for Corncrakes at the Nene Washes.

Quite why we drove past the local fish and chip shop, which sells fine chips, was open, and didn’t have a queue, I can’t remember. Thrapston has two fish and chip shops. One was already shut and the other looked open, but was also shut. On, to Oundle, to look for posh chips. My mobile phone told me where the chippie was in Oundle and that it was open until 10pm so this should be easy.  It wasn’t easy to find and although it was more like 930pm than 10pm, we saw the lights being turned off as we pulled up. Grrr!  And so it was the Oundle Chinese that provided us with pancake rolls and chips.

Pancake rolls are easy to eat as one drives to the Nene Washes and very welcome too. As I pulled into the car park at Eldernell it was, of course, now completely dark and after 10pm.  The chips were still hot. Chips from the Chinese takeaway are always a bit of a disappointment (don’t you think?)  but some chips are better than no chips. I turned off the car engine and lowered the car window to listen for corncrakes. A Corncrake was singing.

I told you – the chips were the difficult bit.

The Corncrake sang continually for the 10 minutes it took to eat the Chinese chips. Crex, crex! Munch, munch! Crex, crex! Crex, crex! Munch!

I looked towards the Corncrake but there was nothing to see. I could describe the scene in front of me, as I know it well – but I couldn’t see it.  And even had it been light there was no way I would have seen the Corncrake.  They are fantastically good at hiding, and this one had hundreds of acres of long grass to hide in – Corncrake heaven!

Corncrakes might be the bird species with the highest ratio of heard:seen records in my birding experience. I see owls, even Tawny Owls, more frequently (as a proportion of all records) than Corncrakes. I see Nightingales very rarely – but more often proportionately than I see Corncrakes.  Cetti’s Warbler might run Corncrakes close though.

But this invisible Corncrake was easy to listen to. Not perhaps easy on the ear, as the rasping ‘Crex, crex!’ song really does sound like the noise made by running your finger over a comb’s teeth (in other words – nothing special melodically) but it kept singing as I kept munching.

I’ve written before about the reintroduction project that has put Corncrakes back into this wetland after an absence of many decades but the links aren’t working on the RSPB website at the moment – I’ll put them in if they re-emerge.  I’m pleased to have been a part of it, and I’m pleased that it’s now the chips that are difficult and the Corncrakes are easy.

 

 

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