Tower and Town, August 2023 (view the full edition)Nature Correspondent"Crex crex" On warm midsummer evenings local birders are straining their ears for the sound of the quail from downland fields of wavering cereal: our smallest game bird, its call is a distinctive, far-reaching "wet-me-lips!" Meanwhile, on the island of Iona, residents are kept awake at night by the persistent rasping call of another secretive and seldom-seen game bird: the Corncrake, Latin name "Crex crex.". Once common in England until the 20th C. less than a thousand singing males were recorded in the U.K. in 2021, now confined to the western isles of Scotland. The adjacent island of Mull is a great place to be in early June, with a wealth of distinctive wildlife to enjoy. Luckily for us the weather was warm and sunny, the sky light till well after 10.00 p.m. and the midges not yet out in force. Both golden and white-tailed eagles were on the wing and all three species of diver seen in summer plumage. Red deer roam the hills and with patience otters can be spotted along loch shorelines. Photogenic Highland cattle cool off in the loch's shallow margins, the comical young calves pale and fluffy. Here, 500 miles from Marlborough, populations of the commoner birds are different. Cuckoos and willow warblers, scarce in Wiltshire, are doing well, while our familiar yellowhammers, corn buntings, magpies and jackdaws are all scarce. Carrion crows are replaced by hooded crows and wild rock doves nest on the cliffs. From Fionnphort, boat trips take you to Staffa, where you are landed to see nesting puffins and visit Fingal's Cave. As we came alongside, the skipper played us a snatch from Mendelssohn's Hebrides Overture. Writing to his sister, the composer, who had rowed there with his friend in a wave-tossed skiff, admitted to being dreadfully sick, despite being inspired by the scene before him. On a much calmer sea we saw a minke whale as well as razorbills, guillemots, black guillemots, gannets, a great skua and several manx shearwaters congregating around a shoal of fish. Back home I recently happened on a poem by a local man: You wanted to chase that bird away,  Robin Nelson |