Sadly and not surprisingly, the bird was not in the best of health and after a trip to a local vet, the bird ended up at the Cuan House Wildlife resue centre. A positive ID had already been obtained but Geoff Holmes asked me to nip over and take a picture of the bird - 'for the record'.
You might think this would be easy but in a dimly lit room and with the cage door briefly held ajar at 1/4 sec hand held with no flash of course, I didn't fancy my chances. Here is the result - one juvenile Corncrake.....
It was not to be a happy ending however. A planned release Wednesday evening never happened as the bird died during Tuesday night. How long before one turns elsewhere I wonder, as Martin George so aptly put - the challenge is now to find one - without the aid of a cat!
