Can corncrakes make a midsummer comeback?

On the longest day of the year, the extended daylight is not the only thing to keep you awake in the Western Isles of Scotland.

As the sun finally sets towards midnight on the summer solstice, the standing stones of Callanish echo to a strange rasping sound: the repetitive, two-note call of the corncrake.
Its call would have been even more familiar to our ancestors and is so characteristic that the species' scientific name, Crex crex, represents the sound.
While the charismatic bird has disappeared from much of Britain, conservation work has helped them cling on in this corner of the country and could hold hope for their future.
Sound of summer The corncrake is a bizarre bird of the rail family, related to the more familiar coot and moorhen, but favouring dry land.

By Stephen Moss Naturalist
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