Little Crake Porzana parva
Vagrant. Eastern Europe.
There are no modern confirmed records of this species in the county and just one historical record. The first and only record to date was that in 1910, unfortunately killed by a dog and preserved in Lincoln Museum, quote taken from Naylor (2023):
"Major W. J. R. Cragg has kindly presented to the City & County Museum a female that was caught by his grand-father’s dog at Spanby near Threekingham in 1910. There are no previous authentic records but the species may now be admitted to the Lincolnshire list." This became the first (and only)official Lincolnshire record.
Small crakes thought to be this species were seen at Great Coates, October 1869; Tetney, October 1888, 1907 and 1930; at Gibraltar Point August 1953 and at Wrangle August 1978. None of these was able to be specifically identified however and are not included in the county statistics. The secretive nature of this species is likely to mean they are easily missed. The BBRC Report on rare birds in Great Britain in 2018 published a Cambridgeshire record of a female which had been sound recorded only, and notes that the last time one was actually seen in Britain was in 2015. Records have tended to be of adults in spring and juveniles in autumn and the species is only detected in Britain about every two years. However, with an increasing number of wetland restoration projects in Britain and on the near continent there may be hope for a record in the near future.
| Site | First date | Last date | Count | Notes |
| Spanby | 1910 | 1 | Exact date unknown; killed by a dog. Specimen was at Lincoln Museum (discarded?) |
Reference
Naylor, KA 2023 Historical Rare Birds accessed 25/01/2023 <https://www.historicalrarebirds.info/>
(Account as per new Birds of Lincolnshire (2021), included September 2022)