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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Related birds evolve different songs and colours

Canadian Researchers have discovered a pattern in birds' songs and plumage that help explain some of the colourful and tuneful variety in nature.

The team found that closely related birds that share the same habitat tend to look and sound different.
This evolutionary rule of thumb seems to help birds to identify members of their own species.
Dr Paul Martin presented the findings at the First Joint Congress for Evolutionary Biology in Ottawa.
He and his team studied 250 bird species throughout the world.
With the help of the Macaulay Library of birdsong, they were able to compile a database of where the birds lived and what they looked and sounded like.
"We found, repeatedly, that birds that [live in the same location] with a close relative have more divergent songs and colour patterns," he told BBC Nature.
By Victoria Gill Science reporter, BBC Nature, Ottawa, Canada
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