The corncrake has suffered a catastrophic decline over the past five years and is now on the verge of extinction, according to a survey.
Conservationists blame the changes in farming practices, in particular the early cutting of hay meadows for silage and the over-grazing of grassland, which have destroyed the landscape in which the bird nests.
This year the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) and the Irish Wildbird Conservancy recorded 643 males in Britain and the Irish republic, compared with 1,494 in 1988. Nearly all the 469 males found in Britain were confined to the northern and western islands of Scotland.
Chris Harbard, a spokesman for the RSPB, said: "The numbers are now so low that the corncrake may well become extinct within the next 10 to 15 years."
