Sir - Your correspondent “D. S" refers to a letter I wrote about a year ago deploring the gradual elimination of the corncrake.
He states that he hears one daily in the neighbourhood of Wadsley, and he asks what happens when the grass is mown and he no longer hears the call.
The corncrake is a migratory bird which breeds in this country.
The nest is usually in the mowing grass, and its eggs and young are very frequently destroyed by the mowing machines.
Formerly it bred mostly in the cornfields which have now practically disappeared.
Corn is reaped a month or two later than hay crops, and the young corncrakes got safely away.
The corncrake, as a British species, is doomed to extinction, and the above is the chief reason.
The reason that “D. S.” longer hears the call after the grass is mown is that the raucous note of the bird is really its love call to its mate, and is only heard at mating or nesting time May, June, and July.
The incessant reel of the nightjar, too, is only heard at nesting and mating times, and it is really serenading its mate.
The “drum” of snipe (whether it be caused by the wings, tail feathers, or voice, or in some other undiscovered manner') is only heard in mating and nesting times - that is, spring and early summer, and it. therefore, follows that, if many naturalists are correct, its courting signal comes from its wings or tail feathers instead of its beak.
It would be interesting to know whether there is any other bird or beast whose courting blandishments are uttered, or supposed to be uttered, by its tail.
In spite of the assertions of many great naturalists that the “drum” of snipe is only heard during the many swift and short descents in its circular flight, and that, therefore, the sound is made by the wings or tail feathers, I am still of opinion that, though this may partly be the cause, the “drumming” is so vivid that it is, at any rate partly, the sound of its voice.
The snipe makes these sudden descents at other parts of the year outside the mating and nesting season, yet no “drumming” ensues, and I, therefore, hold this to be conclusive, that the weird and uncanny “drum” of snipe is. some degree, if not entirely, the sound of its voice.
Up to now I have not heard a single call of the corncrake in this district, and it was later than this last year before I heard the first “creak-creak” of this strange bird.
Many people seem to object to the discordant voice of the corncrake, but, from my boyhood, I have delighted in the call, associated as it always to me, with promise of bounteous harvest and the lush meadows of June.
Henry Walker
Dale View
Bradwell
Sheffield
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