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August 2010
CORNCRAKE, audible but invisible Crex crex Once upon a time a Corncrake was a familiar messenger of summer for the people in the countryside of Southern Finland. They could hear the creaky rreek-rreek-rreek from the fields. That "sawing" creak went on for hours and belonged to the night time atmosphere as inseparably as the rippling sound of a skylark heard everywhere at daytime. The Corncrake is brilliant in hiding itself, it escapes a possible threat in the covers of the vegetation. The number of corncrakes diminished catastrophically already in the 1930's. The agriculture changed, scythes were no longer used for mowing, mowers pulled by horses became common. Often the field was mowed by circling it starting from the edges. The corncrakes got stuck in the last patch of unmowed field, and were eventually destroyed. In Kuusamo, the Corncrake is a very rare visitor. As I recall, only three sightings have been made in the last decade. I took this picture in the wide fields of Lapua. Typically for July, there was a familiar sound in the fields; the corncrake was apparently a wanderer without a spouse. The sound from a CD-player lured it to approach. Cleverly it peeked from the thick vegetation. Lapua, July 2009 |
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