The Corn Crake bird has a short bill and shows chestnut wings and long dangling legs in flight. Both male and female are similar, however, in the immature bird the blue-grey is replaced by a buff colouring. The downy chicks are black, as with all rail birds.
Their breeding habitat is not marshes as with most crakes, but, as the name implies, meadows and arable farmland. it breeds across Europe and western Asia, migrating to Africa in winter. The Corn Crake is very secretive in the breeding season, and can be heard considerably more than it can be seen. It is hard to flush, walking away through the vegetation.
The Corn Crake birds song, mainly heard at night and very early morning, is a repetitive, far-carrying ‘crex crex’, like two notched sticks being rubbed together. The Corn Crake feeds mainly on insects.
It is in deep decline across most of its range because modern farming practices mean that nests and birds are destroyed by mowing or harvesting before breeding is finished.
