Peeping out from the grass, a corncrake.

The world's worst singer - hearing a corncrake on Inishturk

I HAVE always been a bird lover. My grá for the feathered flock came from my uncle, Denny Fahey, who brought me shooting as a young boy, writes Tom Gillespie.

What he shot was for the table and he only took what he needed. I remember being in the Turlough area with him on a winter’s evening when mallard duck were returned and he would pick them off as they came in to land, and his faithful gun dog would retrieve the prized waterfowl.

The drake has a stunning dark-green, glossy head, a white collar and a purple-brown breast. Denny targeted the male whenever possible.

In preparing the mallard for the pot I had the task of plucking him. It was important to carefully remove the coloured wing feathers as they were used to tie artificial flies for the next season’s fishing.

Later, I did take up shooting for a very short period and after targeting a few rabbits and hares I chucked it up. Mind you, I still enjoy rabbit and hare but these treats can be purchased from local butchers, but must be ordered in advance.

On one outing near Parke, Denny shot a grey heron which I took home and brought in the following morning to Brother Dennis in sixth class in St. Patrick’s National School.

Brother Dennis was into nature and I knew the dead heron would be a distraction from everyday lessons. And so it was, but we soon realised the bird was covered in lice and it had to be removed, post haste, from the class.

On winter evenings Denny often babysat us in Marian Row. He used to bring us up to the upstairs window to listen out for ‘coor-li’ call of the curlew as they flew in over Bayne’s Hill.

He also brought me to Old Head where we walked back to the cliffs and with his .202 we took pot shots at the cormorants.

He used to shoot rabbits in the sand dunes in Bertra. One Sunday I was walking in front of him when he admonished me accordingly: ‘Never walk in front of a man with a gun or behind a man when he runs’.

Any rabbits shot were gutted there and then and skinned when we got home.

During the war years, when food was scarce, Denny could get half-a-crown for a brace of rabbits from Castlebar Bacon Factory - tidy money at the time. He was a crack shot and usually bagged whatever he targeted.

In his kitchen at Newantrim Street, beside his blacksmith’s forge, he kept a constant stew pot on the boil on the range which he topped up after each shoot.

As youngsters we were always seeking out birds nests in the springtime. It was a treat to locate one with its speckled eggs and watch the chicks hatch out and eventually mature and fly away.

It was important that you did not touch the eggs or the nest because the mother would get the human scent and abandon the nest.

The summer days and nights then echoed to the loud, rasping ‘crek-crek’ of the corncrake, now on the verge of extinction.

Thankfully, the last corncrake I heard was on Inishturk Island last May, but, sadly, it had not been heard on the island for 20 years.

According to BirdWatch Ireland, the corncrake produces a sound so monotonous as to qualify the bird as the world's worst singer. This lack in vocal accomplishment is more than compensated for by their dignified operatic deportment as they stand erect with head held high and beak wide open.

Formerly an extremely common summer visitor, corncrakes have suffered drastic population declines this century and are threatened with global extinction.

The number of corncrakes, known for their rasping calls, fell by 39 per cent between 2014 and 2017.

The 2017 bird census found that there were 140 calling males - a drop of 16.6 per cent on the 168 calling males recorded here in 2016.

The elusive bird was once widespread across the countryside but the population was decimated by mechanised farming.

It is now confined mainly to Donegal, Mayo and Connemara and the continuing drop comes as the State devotes even more resources to maintaining a population of the bird here.

This decline is due in most part to intensive farming practices, including early mowing to make silage and mechanised hay making practices which have destroyed nests and driven corncrakes from old habitats.

Now the bird is confined to areas where difficult terrain precludes the use of machinery and where traditional late haymaking still takes place.

For many years, Tim Gordon, from Clogher, Ballina, and the Irish Wildbird Conservancy ran an annual campaign to Save the Corncrake.

Farmers in Mayo were offered grants who agreed to delay mowing until July 19, as well as further payments for mowing in a corncrake-friendly way.

On a visit to Keel beach in Achill some years I encountered a large crow-like bird, which turned out to be a chough.

They have a glossy, black plumage and a long, curved, red bill and legs. My attention was drawn by its distinctive ‘kweeaw’ call.

It was not until I returned home and consulted Davit Cabot’s 2003 Complete Irish Birds’reference book that I was able to identify the chough.

In my back garden I have a bird feeder, which attracts dozens of small birds each day.

Blackbirds and thrushes, too, live in the vicinity.

Thankfully, two magpies that were circling around have vanished from the scene.

Now at the bird table we have doves, starlings, house sparrow, chaffinch, greenfinch, bullfinch, pied wagtail, tits and a family of robins that have been with us since we moved to Mons Terrace.

The robins maintain their territory and take no nonsense from the other feeders, but they are very sociable and follow me round the garden perching on nearby branches.