Seems that the Save the Corncrake group may be laying traps for mink.
Someone was telling me that he came across one of these fancy traps.
It was in two seperate compartments.One section held a live magpie that had a food and water supply.The trap attached was to catch mink having a closer look at the magpie.Adian Kelly reckons that the river level is too high to catch mink and indeed the high floods will not be a welcoming sight for any returning corncrakes. When numbers of corncrakes were increasing steadily some years ago it was a flood insummer that drowned many of the young chicks.

Yesterday Alf and Tina Hasler from Claymore Irish Pub at Erzenhausen in Germany stopped by while on a two week holiday on a Carrickcraft cruiser on the Shannon.They reckon this is their first holiday in five years.They have a website www.claymore-irish-pub.de and contact is info@claymore etc.They picked up a Daithi Rua CD as they have Irish music in their bar.