| | ireland.com / In Time's Eye / Birds |
 | | However, as farmers became more intensive in their production methods and silage-making replaced haymaking as the main source of winter fodder, the corncrake was in trouble.Now, despite an international effort to conserve its breeding grounds, it is the only Irish breeding bird threatened with global extinction. |
 | | Since the 1991 launch of the Corncrake Conservation Project, which is supported by the Department of the Environment and the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB), there has been only an overall decline in the number of calling males, the best indicator of breeding pairs. |
 | | The Corncrake Grant Scheme, supported by the National Parks and Wildlife Service of the Deparment of the Environment and now enshrined in the EU's Rural Environment Protection Scheme may well mean generations to come will be able to hear this elusive, shy visitor from Africa which comes here to breed each year. |
| www.ireland.com /timeseye/birds/corncrake.htm (749 words) |