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During a family trip to the Eagle Mountains, I managed to stumble upon a beautifully filmable whinchat nest. A week later, I was going to the mountains again with my camera, and I thought that my friend Ivo Hertl, as a lover of the mountain environment, could make the trip together with me. Despite all the spring rush, we managed to coordinate a date together, and we set off full of vigour for a two-day adventure!

Surprisingly, I finished filming the whinchats during the first morning, so in the afternoon there was time for not very cooperative meadow pipits. While I was sweating inside the camouflage tent, Ivo was wandering around and discovering local attractions. A little before sunset, I received a message from him that he was slowly packing up and going for a well-deserved beer, where I could arrive later. I didn't consider that a bad idea after a hard day. However, my relaxing ideas were soon shattered by Ivo's phone call that he had just discovered two corncrakes, which spontaneously started calling in full light and were shouting at each other not far from our accommodation. Okay, so the beer must wait... I loaded my equipment into my backpack and rolled briskly towards the corncrake meadow, while the mischievous sun was slowly starting to touch the spruces on the horizon ☀️

When I arrived at the spot, Ivo elaborated on his experience, "I heard a male here just off the road, so I sat down on a bollard and tried to play him a recording. Immediate reaction, he flew a little behind me and started calling. Then he emerged on the grass edge, ran over my shoe, stood in the middle of the road and there he let off another verse. I never saw a corncrake so well in my life." 😁

Ivo always tells stories like this with unwavering calm. But my head was hit by a blizzard and I grabbed my things in a second and hurried to repeat the scene. But, as it happens in nature, the corncrake was no longer interested in the recording. He was happily calling in the thick grass a few dozen meters from the road, oblivious to us. Anyway, time flies, the light is diminishing and we can hear another male corncrake a little further away, so we change our plan and try to capture this one on camera.

You have seen the result of this action in the previous video - we managed to lure the male onto a narrow meadow path and got some great shots. But what about his road buddy? After all, that would have been cool footage too and we might be able to interest him again in the morning. So it's clear, alarm for 4 am and instead of pipits we go for a corncrake ⏰

The early morning wake-up call did not catch Mr. Hertl in the best of moods. "Ooh, I hope that's not the alarm clock? Oh, yeah, I can't get up." Never mind, I can do it myself. So I crept out of the hut, reached the road, and there's not really much more to tell - I played the recording to the corncrake, who obediently ran out onto the asphalt within a minute and let me record the footage you're watching. Hooray, glory, bingo and all that 🏆

But the world is not just covered in pink blankets, so I'll throw in a painful fiasco that followed right after.

I thought it would be great to start the video with the following shot: a car drives along the road, disappears from the frame, and right afterward a corncrake comes out on the side of the road (after all, that's basically how it happened). However, the sun had risen quite high in the meantime, and the scene would not have matched the previous shots. I said to myself, "Never mind, I'll finish this little stupid thing tonight." So I went back to the accommodation to take a quick nap, and we took turns in the room with Ivo, who now went exploring in the forest. When he came back after two hours, he announced right at the door, "You wanted to finish the shot with the car, didn't you? I guess it won't work out. A tractor just drove by and mowed down the whole roadside." YOU'VE GOT TO BE KIDDING ME! I peeked out of the window and to my horror found that the flowering roadside had indeed disappeared, and the whole road was covered in green rubbish. That's why today's video, unfortunately, doesn't start with a car driving by. Plague and smallpox on you, road workers!

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▷ Species
Corncrake (Crex crex)

▷ Location and Date
Eagle Mountains, Czechia | June 2023

▷ Equipment
Panasonic GH6
Metabones T Smart
Sigma 60-600
Zoom F3
Sennheiser MKE600

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pichlukas@email.cz

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Corncrake | Crex crex | Chřástal polní | Wachtelkönig | Râle des genêts | guion de codornices | re di quaglie | Коросте́ль

#europeanwildlife #corncrake #crexcrex

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