The number of calling corncrakes at WWT Welney has tripled in three years after the wetland centre became a release site for a reintroduction scheme. This small bird was once found across much of the UK but is now lost virtually everywhere except the western islands of Scotland. Their catastrophic decline has been put down to a mixture of changes in agricultural practices and wetland loss since the mid-20th century. In 2021, the Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust (WWT), a wetland restoration charity, was invited to host a new release site at its Welney reserve, just over the Cambridgeshire border in …