BirdLife International 
Corncrake Conservation Team

News

E-Mail; Sent: 19 August 2004 13:36 to all members of the Corncrake Conservation Team

Dear Corncrake Experts,

It's been a long time since I last wrote to you. A lot has happened in the meantime: Corncrake populations in some Central and Eastern European countries are still going up, whilst in others we think we have passed the peak. Western European populations reached a long-term high, which was almost certainly a result of the positive population trends further east.
And all this has been fuelled by agricultural changes in Central and Eastern European Countries.

The global population status of the Corncrake has been re-assessed resulting in a down-listing of the species from IUCN category "vulnerable" to "near threatened". The population trend, rather then the total number of Corncrakes is the reason behind this. In particular, with the current situation in Russia, there seems to be little risk of a severe population decline (criteria: >30% decline in the next 10 years) in the near future.
(see: http://208.185.149.227/WebX?13@23.pgJ7a2w1bBR.12@.2cba2a65).

Through intensification of grassland management, afforestation, or vegetation succession towards scrubland/forest, the population trend might change in the future. An International Corncrake Monitoring Scheme is therefore more important than ever before. Please find details of all these
issues on our website under www.corncrake.net/projekt_cctmonitoring_e.htm.

There are a couple of points, I would like to mention today:

Website
Our website www.corncrake.net has proven to be very useful. The website is maintained by Ubbo Mammen (UK.Mammen@t-online.de). Please let Ubbo or myself know should you have any comments.
We would like to put more publications on our website. Please send electronic versions of any Corncrake papers, in particular "grey literature" which is difficult to obtain to Ubbo.

Corncrake Species Action Plan
Many of you have contributed to the updated Corncrake Species Action Plan developed by BirdLife International on behalf of the European Commission.
The draft text is currently with the EU Ornis Committee. We hope the text will be agreed and published in the near future. We will publish the text of the updated Corncrake Species Action Plan on our webiste.

Corncrake year 2004
Following a number of anecdotal information from several countries, it seems that the number of Corncrakes this year was lower than last year. In a few areas, the percentage of old males appear to have been higher than in earlier years. Last winter, colleagues from Southern Africa told us Corncrakes had moved much further south than in usual years. This might have had an impact on the return rate of Corncrakes to wintering sites.
In case you have any comments on this, please put them in our guest book under www.corncrake.net/guestbuch_e.htm.

Corncrake brochure
You will receive by post several copies of a brochure on Corncrakes, which has been produced in both English and German. We still have a number of free copies, so please let me know if you wish to receive further copies.

International Corncrake Monitoring
Oskars Keiss (corncrake.monitoring@lob.lv) is still looking for any data (published or unpublished) on Corncrake population trends in Europe. The minimum data set for his analysis is the same observer recording Corncrakes in the same area with the same method in two successive years. In case you
have any data, please provide these to Oskars (see: www.corncrake.net/projekt_cctmonitoring_e.htm). Your support is very much appreciated.

Global distribution map
We are currently putting together a global distribution map of the Corncrake. We will put a draft on our website soon. The aim is to describe the distribution of the Corncrake at the beginning of the 21st century. A list of literature on which the map is based will also be presented on the web. Your comments on this map are very welcome.

Birds in the Western Palearctic
Kees Koffijberg and I are currently updating the Corncrake chapter for Birds of the Western Palearctic. For this, we are still looking for data on the following issues:
(1) movement (during and between seasons), (2) diet, (3) survival and (4) measurements.
In case you have any data on the above mentioned issues, please contact us.
The source of any data will of course be mentioned in the publication.

Latest population data in "Birds in Europe II" (published by BirdLife International)
The latest population figures of the Corncrake in Europe will be included in "Birds in Europe II", to be published in autumn this year. The figures will also be presented on our website.

Publication Proceedings
The papers presented during our last Corncrake workshop (Hilpoltstein, September 1998) have been on our website (www.corncrake.net/proceedings_e.htm) for some time. Various people requested a printed version of this publication, and we are intending to print a technical report containing all the papers by the end of this year. Please have a look at your article and let us know in case you have any comments. We realize that some data are now quite old; however, we still think it is important to have a good record of the Corncrake situation at the beginning of the 21st century.

Corncrake workshop
Several of you approached us with the suggestion of organizing a Corncrake workshop within the next few years. We are currently looking for funding for this event. Please let us know should you have any ideas (or even better, resources).

Addresses
Please check your address on the website (www.corncrake.net/adressen.htm).
Please let me know should you want to make any changes.

We were all very sad to hear about the tragic death of our colleague Walter Wettstein last summer. This is a great loss to us all; perhaps we can best honour his memory by continuing our work towards conservation.

Very best wishes,

Norbert Schäffer, Ubbo Mammen
BirdLife International Corncrake Conservation Team