When Katie Gibb took on the role of RSPB NI Antrim Plateau Conservation Officer last year, the native New Zelander was looking forward to her first full year monitoring the progress of curlews in the Antrim Hills from this month onwards.However, following government advice in response to Covid-19, the RSPB has ceased all field work and so Katie will not be following the Co Antrim curlews’ progress this season. Here, writing ahead of World Curlew Day today, she writes about the work that has been done in Glenwherry in the past, the work that will be done in the future, and how farmers and landowners will be such important eyes on the skies – and on the fields where curlews nest – this season.In my role, I record the numbers, location and behaviours of curlews. I am out, rain or shine, covering over 3,500 hectares ensuring that all the breeding waders and other priority species including merlins and hen harriers are monitored. I would be heading home after long hours out in the moorland; exhilarated, muddy, sporting a cherished new bruise or two, a clipboard full of data, and the incessant song of the skylarks ringing in my ears. Every day I learn more vital information and understanding more about curlews, these threatened birds that we are so desperately trying to save. The decline of the curlew has become a story we know far too well; humans have changed and modified the environment to their needs at the expense of yet another species. Changes and intensification of farmland, diminishing and fragmentation of breeding habitat, and other factors have all had an impact. In Northern Ireland in the last four decades we have decreased from more than 5,000 pairs to an estimated 200. We have only two real hotspots left: Fermanagh and the Antrim Hills - two places in which RSPB NI and landowners are desperately working to keep and increase their curlew numbers. And in that we have all the difference. In Glenwherry/Antrim Hills, the RSPB is lucky to have more than 50 passionate and proactive landowners and farmers.We have always been awed at the lengths that these men and women are willing to go to ensure the survival of these birds; from habitat creation and management, to delayed silage cutting, modified stock rotations and even temporary protective fences all so these ground-nesting birds have a chance (see if you can spot the curlew chick in the photo above!) This year - for the first time in almost 20 years and following the government advice and guidance - we will not be undertaking field work. So we will have no data and no stories about the curlews of the Antrim Plateau.But we have been inundated with offers from landowners and farmers to monitor and report the movements and behaviours of curlew pairs. Considering these landowners normally know these birds and what they are up to better than us, we have of course accepted their offers and put together a citizen science methodology. Although this data cannot be added to the formal population analyses, it means we have a note of the presence or absence of many of the pairs we have been following for several years. It will allow us to have an idea of how the breeding season is progressing and might even give us an idea of the breeding success this season. When coming into this project last year, I have repeatedly told people how blown away I have been with the passion and dedication of the landowners, farmers and the wider community of Glenwherry. However, this incredible response from them all, while not surprising me in the slightest, has highlighted just how far this project has surpassed being solely RSPB research. As a community, people have taken ownership and stewardship of these incredible birds and it is a complete honour to be working alongside them.All pics (C) Neal Warnock