corncrakes

The sun was blazing; the orioles called to each other in the green thicket; corncrakes chattered close to the path; blue butterflies fluttered in crowds about the white, and red flowers of the low-growing clover; in the perfectly still grass bees hung, as though asleep, languidly buzzing.

A Desperate Character 2006

Notable success stories include the UK population of corncrakes, which has doubled since 1993, and lesser horseshoe bats whose numbers have increased by 42% in Wales and 39% in South West England.

ENCOURAGING SIGNS FOR UK'S THREATENED BIODIVERSITY Thatsnews 2006

Quails were in hundreds around; corncrakes were calling to one another in the thickets ....

Mumu 2006

They were not the tears of soft joy such as the earth weeps at welcoming the summer sun and parting from it, and such as she gives to drink at dawn to the corncrakes, quails, and graceful, long-beaked crested snipes.

The Witch, and other stories 2004

And the larks trilled unceasingly, the corncrakes called to one another, and the landrail cried as though someone were really scraping at an old iron rail.

The Witch, and other stories 2004

St. Laisrech, for instance, condemned the lands of those who refused her tribute, to -- nettles, elder shrub, and corncrakes!

Life of St. Declan of Ardmore and Life of St. Mochuda of Lismore Anonymous

The birds of the morning had not begun their orisons, while the birds of the night, the owls and the corncrakes had, happily, retired before the promise of that weakening darkness which seemed nevertheless to have reached a moment of suspense -- indeed, I fancied that it was darker, now, than when I had come out of the Hall a quarter of an hour before.

The Jervaise Comedy 1910

Hence it will cause him no surprise that there should be geese and frigate-birds with webbed feet, living on the dry land and rarely alighting on the water; that there should be long-toed corncrakes, living in meadows instead of in swamps; that there should be woodpeckers where hardly a tree grows; that there should be diving thrushes and diving Hymenoptera, and petrels with the habits of auks.

VI. Difficulties of the Theory. On the Origin and Transitions of Organic Beings with Peculiar Habits and Structure 1909

Mourn, clamouring craiks at close o 'day, [corncrakes]' Mang fields o 'flowering clover gay;

Robert Burns How To Know Him William Allan Neilson 1907

It was like a water-meadow at home, such a place as I had often in boyhood searched for moss-cheepers 'and corncrakes' eggs.

Prester John John Buchan 1907