The corncrake has been saved more or less by efforts of the "Save the Corncrake" movement in Ireland, and the RSPB in the UK. The bird, its distinctive sound once common, is now only in a few hinterlands, one of the main ones in the callowlands around Banagher in County Offaly, and down into Lusmagh and also Meelick and Clonfert in neighbouring Galway, where the overflows of the River Shannon created the callowland so suitable to its habitiat.

A series of initiatives, coupled with grants, caused changes to the way farmers done thier farming to take account fo the needs of the corncrake, and numbers are stabilising.

The poem asks, if we made the same efforts to accommodate our fellow man as we do for a bird whose song is not nice, feathers are not useful, and cannot be eaten, would the world not be a better place?

~~~~~~~~~~~~ The Poem ~~~~~~~~~~~~

Its song is not of an angels chorus
Nor its feathers for placing on a hat
Nor its flesh fit to be on a plate
And yet, for all that
The corncrakes call and its demise
Has reached into our heart
For maybe our loss of oneness with nature
It has made us aware, or made a good start.

And so today in open field
Where they cut from the edge before
They now cut from the centre out
So the corncrake can once more
Be heard, above the sounds of evening
By all, for the coming years
For it is through carelessness of man
That nature disappears.

Imagine: if we done for fellow man
Who little for we might care
And adapted the way we live our lives
To give him a chance where
He might prosper, yet we don't lose
It would be a wondrous thing
A lot less trouble would be in the world
That would be a song to sing!

Alas the humble cry of the corncrake
Was not saved out of love:
It took grants of free money
To make man rise above
His lust for gain: and so with man
Unless God gives a financial grant
To man to take care of his fellow man and adapt
Prospects for peace are scant!

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