Counting corncrakes: The affective science of the UK corncrake census

This paper traces the efforts of a small number of ornithologists and bird surveyors to design and implement a national census for the corncrake (Crex crex), a rare migratory bird, in north-west Scotland. Drawing on concepts and methodologies from the sociology of science and the recent ethological turn in social theory, it follows corncrake scientists as they tune in to the bird's ecology and behaviour and devise and distribute a standardized set of methods for a national census. It examines how these methods were implemented in practice in the field and explores the embodied skills and emotions involved in counting corncrakes. Finally, it follows how, as the outcome of the census, the corncrake was framed for the first time as a dynamic population and given voice through a representing assemblage. The paper concludes with some more general observations about the benefits of understanding the field sciences as affective practices and draws attention to the importance of embodied skill, emotion and an ethical sensibility in the generation of scientific representations.