Corn crake

The corn crake is a bird in the rail family. It breeds in Europe and Asia as far east as western China. It migrates to Africa for the Northern Hemisphere’s winter. The male’s call is a loud krek krek, from which the scientific name is derived.

About Corn crake in brief

The corn crake, corncrake or landrail is a bird in the rail family. It breeds in Europe and Asia as far east as western China, and migrates to Africa for the Northern Hemisphere’s winter. It is a medium-sized crake with buff- or grey-streaked brownish-black upperparts, chestnut markings on the wings, and blue-grey underparts with rust-coloured and white bars on the flanks and undertail. Juveniles are similar in plumage to adults, and downy chicks are black, as with all rails. There are no subspecies, although individuals from the east of the breeding range tend to be slightly paler than their western counterparts. The male’s call is a loud krek krek, from which the scientific name is derived. This crake is in steep decline across much of its former breeding range because modern farming practices often destroy nests before breeding is completed. Natural threats include introduced and feral mammals, large birds, various parasites and diseases. Although numbers have declined steeply in western Europe, this bird is classed as least concern on the IUCN Red List because of its huge range and large, apparently stable, populations in Russia and Kazakhstan. The rails are a bird family comprising nearly 150 species. Although the origins of the group are lost in antiquity, the largest number of species and least specialised forms are found in the Old World.

The English names refer to the species habit of nesting in dry hay or cereal fields, rather than marshes used by most members of this family. The Corn crake feeds on invertebrates, the occasional small frog or mammal, and plant material including grass seed and cereal grain. Outside the breeding season, the upperparts of the sexes become darker and the underparts of both sexes become less grey. The adult male has the crown of its head and all of its upperparts streaked with brown in colour, apart from a pale brown streak from the base of the bill to the eye, and the belly is white. The female has warmer-toned upperparts and a duller eye streak and a narrower, narrower upperparts. The wing coverts are a distinctive brown-brown colour with some white bars. The wingspan is 42–53 cm. Males weigh 165 g on average and females 145 g. The male has a face, neck, and breast are bluegrey, apart from a brown streak apart from pale brown brown and white bar on the underside of the belly. The strong bill is flesh-toning, the iris is pale brown and the legs and feet are pale grey. It lays 6–14 cream-colored eggs which are covered with rufous blotches. These hatch in 19–20 days and the black precocial chicks fledge after about five weeks. The secretive species builds a nest of grass leaves in a hollow in the ground and lays 6-14 eggs.

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