I have heard older country people complain of being kept awake at night by birds calling all around their houses. After one of my films was shown on television, an Aran islander commented on the sequence about the corncrake. The believe in this strange behaviour was not confined to the Aran Islands. The Corncrake is a mysterious bird which hides itself in hay meadows and wet grasslands. The dry, rasping song of the male can be heard from May well into July, especially on warm, summer nights.
Corncrakes are long distance migrants and spend the winter in the savanna of East Africa.