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Helpston's wildlife

Water Rail

The water rail is a small member of the rail family, related to both the moorhen and the corncrake.  It likes nothing more than to poke around with its long beak in the margins of dykes and in thick vegetation, particularly reed.

John Clare described the water ‘craik’ as ‘very scarce here but has been seen and its nest found’.  That scarcity probably relates to the lack of wetland around Helpston in the nineteenth century following the drainage of the fens. 

Today there is much more suitable habitat around the village, created by the gravel workings of previous decades.  Both Bainton and Maxey pits are good places to try to find the water rail. They can occasionally be seen at dusk prodding around for food along the banks of the Maxey Cut. They are regularly sighted too at Swaddywell Pit. More often their strange pig-like grunts and squeals can be heard at dusk at all these sites.

Strangely this usually timid and insectivorous bird can sometimes turn predator, using its long stiletto-like beak to impale its prey or to seize it and drown it!!