Corn Crake - Predators and Parasites

Predators and Parasites

Predators on the breeding grounds include feral and domestic cats, introduced American mink, feral ferrets, otters and red foxes, and birds including the Common Buzzard and Hooded Crow. In Lithuania, the introduced Raccoon Dog has also been recorded as taking Corn Crakes. When chicks are exposed by rapid mowing, they may be taken by large birds including the White Stork, harriers and other birds of prey, gulls and corvids. At undisturbed sites nests and broods are rarely attacked, as reflected in a high breeding success. There is a record of a Corn Crake on migration through Gabon being killed by a Black Sparrowhawk.

The widespread fluke Prosthogonimus ovatus, which lives in the oviducts of birds, has been recorded in the Corn Crake, as have the parasitic worm Plagiorchis elegans, the larvae of parasitic flies, and hard ticks of the genera Haemaphysalis and Ixodes.

During the reintroduction of Corn Crakes to England in the 2003 breeding season, enteritis and ill heath in pre-release birds was due to bacteria of a pathogenic Campylobacter species. Subsequently, microbiology tests were done to detect infected individuals and to find the source of the bacteria in their environment.