Corncrake - 1894

Crex pratensis

Summer visitor.

The Corn-Crake is numerous in most parts of the county, where it arrives about the middle of April. We often saw it on our lawn at Stone Hall, and always had one or two nests close at hand. In the shooting season we noted it until the end of October, the latest birds being always found on wet places on high ground. We owned a setter that was very clever in catching and bringing us Corn-Crakes, and we would take the birds from him and let them go. One season he caught us a Corn-Crake several days in succession at the same corner in a field, which, we thought, indicated that the birds do not stray far from their place of birth until they migrate.

Mathew M.A. 1894, Birds of Pembrokeshire and it's Islands