In search of the Congolese corncrake

Irish Times

01-05-2025

In pursuit of the winter homeland of the corncrake in Africa, our problems began in the
Democratic Republic of Congo
(DRC) capital, Brazzaville.
We arrived in the DRC on February 5th, expecting to have our camera equipment checked at the ministry of home affairs the next day. Routine, we thought, given we had secured both film permit and visa requirements before departure, a process that involved two trips to the embassy in London.
To our surprise, an official from the ministry, a Monsieur O, came to see us at our hotel. Arriving on the back of a moped wearing a traditional, teal-coloured suit, he pronounced his sole concern was the drone that we had brought with us. He took photos of us and of it, and an undertaking was given we would receive a cert the following day, allowing us to use the device during our seven-day stay. An unanticipated, additional payment was also required: €100.
A crew of three – producer, director, and DOP/cameraman – we were in west Africa to film a sequence for Answering the Call, a feature documentary about the
corncrake
. Our purpose was to discover whether this small migratory bird was faring any better in its (probable) winter home: the DRC.
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The corncrake's call has become a rare sound in Ireland, its rasp only reverberating along Donegal coastlines, on a few habited and uninhabited islands in the west and northwest, and along the Mullet peninsula in Co Mayo.
But we are not making a nature documentary – this elusive bird hides in thick banks of weed. Instead, we are examining why Ireland's countryside no longer supports ground-nesting birds like the corncrake, whether its disappearance is symptomatic of the aggressive changes in habitat over the past 50 years.
We also wanted to reveal how a small but significant resurgence is now under way, spending time among communities effecting real change, who are creating pocket habitats that could lure more birds down.
So, why the DRC? While work is under way to preserve and extend the small number of corncrakes that breed in Ireland (approximately 230 males were heard calling last summer), we wanted to assess whether climate change and increased intensive farming in West Africa could negatively impact the few that stop here on their migration north.
Irish people are sentimental about the bird; for many, its arrival heralded the start of summer, reminding people of times past, of sunshine, and of less complicated times. The fact that the males' grating call (to attract a female) is mostly heard at night is conveniently overlooked. My mother, who is in her 80s and who grew up near the Shannon Callows (a location that attracted corncrakes until about 20 years ago), welled up when she heard we were embarking on this documentary.
We left Brazzaville and travelled north, stopping off in Oyo where the country's 81-year-old president, Denis Sassou Nguesso, who has held office for 40 years, has his main residence – and the only industrial farmland that we encountered. From there, we drove west towards the Gabon border, to a town called Ewo – where we were told to introduce ourselves to officials.
We planned to hook up with French ornithologists who were camping 40km from Ewo. They had arrived before us; their goal, to confirm that 'Irish' and 'French' corncrakes overwinter there. They had chosen the location based on research carried out by Scottish ecologists at the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds.
The Scots had tagged 50 corncrakes with geolocators in 2013. 'The birds wintered in savannah areas around a small village, Okongo,' says Ryan Boswarthick, a French conservation ecologist. 'We're trying to figure out what habitats they might be hiding in.'
The French analyse the isotope signature found on the feathers of different bird species in the area and, thus, try to determine the presence or otherwise of corncrakes.
Boswarthick adds: 'In France, in the 1980s, we had about 2,500 calling males; today, only about 100 call. If we get big results from our research here, it'd be amazing for corncrake ecology. We'd be able to understand where they go, what they do, and where they stop [on their migration]. That is, if they even stop!'
Knowing more about the movements of these birds will play a key part in conservation efforts in Ireland and France, perhaps allowing the mitigation of potential threats.
The corncrake's flight patterns had to be put on hold, however, our drone hit a snag. Monsieur O told me that the certificate 'was on the minister's desk', but had not yet been signed. Officials in Ewo informed us we would have to sit it out.
Our time in the DRC was limited: we had five days of filming, and one of those was now slipping away. The next morning, February 8th, the director and cameraman snuck off. I stayed in Ewo and rang the official at noon for an update. He told me to come to the administrative building to meet a man referred to as 'mon colonel'.
A short, three-minute walk in 34-degree heat: I arrived in a sweat. The colonel and the official I'd rung were vexed: 'Where are the others?' In rudimentary French, I tried to explain that they wanted to apologise to the French for not meeting them the night before.
My passport was taken and my phone confiscated. The colonel declared we had to find the two 'missing' film-makers. Okongo, and its surroundings, where my colleagues were headed, had no connectivity. My chief concern was that we'd arrive at the campsite and find the drone airborne.
We drove 30km along a narrow, deeply furrowed sand track. En route, we met our driver coming in the opposite direction. He was alone. The colonel now knew the director and cameraman were doing more than just 'meeting' the French.
Okongo is no more than a scattering of mud-huts and tin shacks in a tiny glade. The colonel greeted the village elders, three of whom jumped into the back of the jeep to provide directions. One had a machete.
We turned off the track and drove across bushland in a sweeping, uphill curve. There was scrub and savannah as far as the eye could see: ideal vegetation for ground-nesting birds. Fortunately, the men at the campsite had seen our approach, so when we shuddered to a stop, no cameras were operating.
The colonel confiscated the drone and ordered me to return with him to Ewo. Whether this amounted to interference or intervention would depend on your viewpoint. Like Goldilocks, the corncrake needs the right balance: excessive mechanisation and detachment from the land mean it will always suffer; less intensive farming and a greater regard for habitat mean the bird and other species prosper.
Even without the drone, we got good footage. Also, with the additional days spent in Ewo, I gained the trust of a few locals. One man called Jean Pierre agrees to be interviewed. Quietly, he confirmed there were indeed many corncrakes in the area and – a downside – he describes how they prepared a meal when they caught one.
'We cut off the feet, pluck the feathers, and ... do just what we would with that,' he says, pointing to a hen skittering across the path. 'We call it Tsombo in our language [Lingala is one of two national languages spoken in addition to French]'. He affirms it tastes good. 'We eat it with manioc (a starchy, tuberous root) and with beans, and with a little bread, garlic and spices.'
Before leaving Ewo, we collected the drone from the colonel; the French later informed us he had suspected we were spies.
Results of the research carried out by the ornithologists will be made available to us in May. It will conclude whether birds near Okongo do indeed migrate to Ireland. We will be filming in Ireland until midsummer and hope to screen the finished documentary at festivals this autumn.
Answering the Call is a Red Pepper production directed by Martin Danneels