A shy summer visitor, the corncrake now only nests in the more peaceful meadowlands of the rural north and west – driven from its former range by increasingly mechanized farming On warm summer evenings at the turn of the century, the monotonous, rasping crek crek of the elusive country folk, so numerous were these birds

Folded into the high moor between dark mats of heather, a shock of bright green moss skirts a ring of boggy pools In one the water heaves and starts to boil as the banded, olive coils of a grass snake slide into view

The Robin, or Redbreast, Erithacus rubecula is Britain’s national bird It was first mentioned as long ago as A