It is a medium-sized crake with buff- or grey-streaked brownish-black upperparts, chestnut markings on the wings, and blue-grey underparts with rust-coloured and white bars on the flanks and undertail.

This secretive species builds a nest of grass leaves in a hollow in the ground and lays 6–14 cream-coloured eggs which are covered with rufous blotches.

The corn crake is omnivorous but mainly feeds on invertebrates, the occasional small frog or mammal, and plant material including grass seed and cereal grain.

Although numbers have declined steeply in western Europe, this bird is classed as least concern on the IUCN Red List because of its huge range and large, apparently stable, populations in Russia and Kazakhstan.

[1] Numbers in western China are more significant than previously thought, and conservation measures have facilitated an increased population in some countries which had suffered the greatest losses.

Despite its elusive nature, the loud call has ensured the corn crake has been noted in literature, and garnered a range of local and dialect names.

Adults undergo a complete moult after breeding, which is normally finished by late August or early September, before migration to south eastern Africa.

In both the breeding and wintering ranges it is unlikely to be confused with any other rails, since sympatric species are smaller, with white markings on the upperparts, different underparts patterns and shorter bills.

To attract males, mechanical imitations of their call can be produced by rubbing two pieces of wood or ribs, one of them with notches,[14] or by flicking a credit card against a comb or zip-fastener.

[11] Because of the difficulty in seeing this species, it is usually censused by counting males calling between 11 pm and 3 am;[17] the birds do not move much at night, whereas they may wander up to 600 m (660 yd) during the day, which could lead to double-counting if monitored then.

Further afield, the corn crake has been recorded as a vagrant to Sri Lanka, Vietnam and Australia,[22] New Zealand,[25] the Seychelles,[26] Bermuda,[27] Canada, the US, Greenland,[11] Iceland, the Faroes, the Azores, Madeira, and the Canary Islands.

After breeding, adults move to taller vegetation such as common reed, iris, or nettles to moult, returning to the hay and silage meadows for the second brood.

[22] Although males often sing in intensively managed grass or cereal crops, successful breeding is uncommon, and nests in the field margins or nearby fallow ground are more likely to succeed.

[21] When wintering in Africa, the corn crake occupies dry grassland and savanna habitats, occurring in vegetation 30–200 cm (0.98–6.56 ft) tall, including seasonally burnt areas and occasionally sedges or reed beds.

If disturbed in the open, this crake will often run in a crouch for a short distance, with its neck stretched forward, then stand upright to watch the intruder.

[11] The corn crake is solitary on the wintering grounds, where each bird occupies 4.2–4.9 ha (10–12 acres) at one time, although the total area used may be double that, since an individual may move locally due to flooding, plant growth, or grass cutting.

[29] Until 1995, it was assumed that the corn crake is monogamous, but it transpires that a male may have a shifting home range, and mate with two or more females, moving on when laying is almost complete.

He has a brief courtship display in which the neck is extended and the head held down, the tail is fanned, and the wings are spread with the tips touching the ground.

[36] The corn crake is omnivorous, but mainly feeds on invertebrates, including earthworms, slugs and snails, spiders, beetles, dragonflies, grasshoppers and other insects.

Food is taken from the ground, low-growing plants and from inside grass tussocks; the crake may search leaf litter with its bill, and run in pursuit of active prey.

[23] Chicks are fed mainly on animal food, and when fully grown they may fly with the parents up to 6.4 km (4.0 mi) to visit supplementary feeding areas.

[43] During the reintroduction of corn crakes to England in the 2003 breeding season, enteritis and ill health in pre-release birds was due to bacteria of a pathogenic Campylobacter species.

[44] Until 2010, despite a breeding range estimated at 12,400,000 km2 (4,800,000 sq mi), the corn crake was classified as near threatened on the IUCN Red List because of serious declines in Europe, but improved monitoring in Russia indicates that anticipated losses there have not occurred and numbers have remained stable or possibly increased.

In much of the western half of its range, there have been long-term declines that are expected to continue, although conservation measures have enabled numbers to grow in several countries, including a five-fold increase in Finland, and a doubling in the UK.

Apart from the reduced suitability of drained and fertilised silage fields compared to traditional hay meadows, in western Europe the conversion of grassland to arable has been aided by subsidies, and further east the collapse of collective farming has led to the abandonment and lack of management of much land in this important breeding area.

[50] The focus of conservation effort is to monitor populations and ecology and to improve survival, principally through changing the timing and method of hay harvesting.

[52] Where breeding sites impinge on urban areas, there are cost implications, estimated in one German study at several million euros per corn crake.

[58] Corn crakes are the subject of three stanzas of the seventeenth century poet Andrew Marvell's "Upon Appleton House", written in 1651 about the North Yorkshire country estate of Thomas Fairfax.

John Clare, the nineteenth-century English poet based in Northamptonshire, wrote "The Landrail", a semi-comic piece which is primarily about the difficulty of seeing corn crakes – as opposed to hearing them.

[64] In The Pogues "Lullaby of London" Shane MacGowan uses the corncrake's cry as a motif to illustrate his alienation in the city, he sings: Though there is no lonesome corncrake's cry Of sorrow and delight You can hear the cars And the shouts from bars And the laughter and the fights[65] In The Decemberists "The Hazards of Love 2 (Wager All)" Colin Meloy references the corn crake's call, singing: "And we'll lie until the corn crake crows.