Madam, – On a recent visit to Inishboffin Island off the coast of Gortahork, Co Donegal, an elderly inhabitant told me, in Gaelic, that he hadn’t been too upset by the very bad weather of May and June, or the fierce force 12 storm towards the end of May that had destroyed all his lobster pots. No, the problem was he couldn’t sleep at night with the racket made by the island’s huge corncrake population, which spent nights meandering around the occupied houses, crex-crexing as they went.
In this modern age of endangered species, is this a record? – Yours, etc,