ALTHOUGH I have no wish to get involved in a dispute about a proposed housing development in Ampleforth, I feel I have to set the record straight about an aspect of wildlife that could be affected.

The planned development of 30 houses has been rejected for the third time by Ryedale District Council’s planning committee and the residents feel that the large scale of the proposed new estate would be detrimental to both the landscape and the character of the village.

Ampleforth is on the southern edge of the North York Moors National Park in an area of outstanding natural beauty and through-traffic is already causing problems because many existing houses have nowhere on their premises to park their vehicles.

They park them on the streets with inevitable congestion.

One aspect of the new houses’ likely impact on the wildlife of the area was mentioned during a Planning Committee meeting. It was the alleged presence of a particularly rare bird, the corncrake.

A representative of David Wilson Homes, the builders, said that the presence of corncrakes had not been substantiated. He added that only one had been heard, but none seen.

I can counter that claim because I have seen a corncrake in Ampleforth, even if it was 27 years ago. At dusk, my wife and I were walking along Back Lane towards Ampleforth Abbey, not far from the site of this proposed development, when we heard the distinctive ‘crex-crex’ call of the corncrake.

As these birds had been present in another village where I was born and reared, the call was instantly recognisable to me even if we could not see the bird itself.

I had heard it many times.

The grating call is variously described as a comb being drawn over a matchbox, or similar to the sound of rattles once used at football matches. It is usually heard coming from long grass or other thick vegetation in arable fields, generally those that are dry rather than being marshland areas.

More often than not, the sound is heard with no sign of the bird in question. It is a very shy character.

We heard the calls on two successive evenings without setting eyes on the bird and although my wife was not then particularly interested in spotting rare birds, I was keen to catch sight of this rare visitor. On the third night, however, luck was on our side.

It was getting dark as we walked along that lane yet again, and once more we heard the distinctive sound of a corncrake. This time it was coming from a field on the opposite side of the lane.

That field lies below a woodland that is popular with rooks and is variously used for accommodating sheep or cattle and so we stopped to listen and watch.

We were rewarded handsomely.

A corncrake rose from the field and flew directly over our heads to land in the field at the other side of the lane. It looked like a small version of a partridge, a rather dumpy bird with warm light and dark brown colouring and distinctive reddish-brown wings. Its method of flight, however, is very distinctive because it dangles its legs when flying over short distances, as it did on this occasion.

We watched its short flight until it landed in long grass and vanished. Then it started to call again and we had no doubt we had seen a corncrake. Sadly, I did not have a camera with me, but I did record the sighting in this paper on August 9, 1986.

That is the last time I have either heard or seen a corncrake, but it seems its rarity continues.

When I was a child living in a moorland village more than 70 years ago, corncrakes were fairly common in some local fields, particularly those used for crops such as hay and corn. The demise of the corncrake, which is a summer visitor to our islands, came about when harvesting and haymaking became highly mechanised.

The combined use of machines and chemicals on the land resulted in the corncrake becoming an endangered and rare species although its numbers were maintained in the north west of Ireland and north west of Scotland.

The corncrake arrives here in late April and remains until August or September and although it appears to fly in short, leg-dangling spurts, it is capable of long and sustained flights when migrating. On those trips, its legs are draw up beneath the body and it can migrate as far as Africa.

Although numbers remain considerably rare in this country, it does seem that the decline has been halted and stabilised with breeding pairs being recorded both in this country and in Ireland.

If the corncrake has been heard again in Ampleforth, then we might be rewarded with another sighting of this curious and distinctive visitor with its croaky, rattling voice and long, dangly legs.

CONTINUING the topic of rare bird sightings, my wife and I recently visited the RSPB site at Leighton Moss which is on the borders between Lancashire and the Lake District, overlooking Morecambe Bay. Our first impression was one of extensive and quite distinct areas of water surrounded by huge masses of tall reeds.

Like all RSPB sites, this is a friendly place with volunteer experts to explain what you are looking at and to identify rare or unusual birds. And it is all helped with colourful images of the birds, lists of those recently seen and a very pleasant cafe with locally- made delights.

Information sheets highlight several species that frequent this site, and perhaps one of the most delightful is the bearded tit. The reeds around Leighton Moss make a perfect habitat for these birds and there is a thriving colony here whereas most other bearded tits will be found on the East Anglia coast and areas of the south coast.

This attractive small bird is a member of the titmouse family and it is distinguished by its long tail and what appears, on the male, to be a black moustache drooping at each side of its face below the eyes. It is mainly light orange- brown with areas of white upon the tail and wings. The male’s head is a blue-grey colour, but the female’s is rather more dull, and she lacks the moustache.

When we arrived, there was considerable excitement about a large number of avocets that had just arrived and we were fortunate to be shown how to find the hide that provided the best vantage point. These are elegant black-and-white waders with long legs and distinctive up-turned beaks. Slightly smaller than a curlew, they are rarely seen in this region, their main breeding grounds being in East Anglia.

We were lucky because a party of visitors led by a guide arrived and promptly thought we were part of their group. We were included in the leader’s highlyknowledgeable explanation of birds we might not have recognised or even noticed.

He drew our attention to a redshank on the edge of a lake, then added it was accompanied by a spotted redshank, a distinction I might not have noticed. We could not identify a huge flock of brownish birds standing on the mudflats, but he revealed they were blacktailed godwits.

Sadly, we did not witness the spectacular aerobatics of the male marsh harrier as he drops food to his female partner flying below, and we just missed spotting a kingfisher.

Similarly, the bitterns remained hidden in the reeds and the local otter failed to make an appearance. But there’s always another time!