As we celebrate World Curlew Day on 21st April, it’s a time when these birds will be settling into their breeding territories on suitable RSPB reserves throughout the UK. Senior Ecologist, Iain Malzer, has been involved in overseeing Curlew work across our reserves network. With a focus on enhancing habitats, Iain demonstrates the diverse range of activities undertaken to ensure our sites are offering top quality opportunities for breeding Curlew.
The Curlew is one of the most important bird conservation priorities in the UK. As such, the RSPB’s Curlew Recovery Programme includes a broad range of activities relating to Curlew conservation, from driving projects like CurlewLIFE, working with partners, advising landowners and inspiring communities. We also have our own suite of nature reserves, many of which host important local populations of breeding Curlew. RSPB Lower Lough Erne supports the highest density of breeding Curlews anywhere on the island of Ireland and reserve sites in Orkney have some of the highest densities of breeding Curlew in Europe. Across our most important reserves for Curlew, we host a total of around 400 breeding pairs annually At these sites, we’ve been busy creating and enhancing habitats, and by offering safe nesting areas close to abundant feeding opportunities, we aim to maximise the chances of successful breeding on our reserves.
As World Curlew Day approaches, anticipation rises among the Wardens, Site Managers, and Ecologists dedicated to the conservation management of these reserves. There is no better feeling than seeing Curlew nest in areas where we’ve targeted vegetation management or watching chicks feed in a newly established wetland. The following offers a few management highlights from across our reserves network over the last year or so.
The Howgill Beck naturalisation project at Geltsdale has created important feeding and bathing sites for Curlew. © Nicholas Rodd/RSPB.
Managing vegetation for CurlewIn Shetland, we’ve been maintaining a series of wet fens on Unst, Fetlar and Shetland Mainland by increasing cattle grazing alongside targeted vegetation cutting. Lots of invertebrate prey thrive in these semi-natural habitats and so it’s important to keep the vegetation from becoming too dense, allowing Curlew to access these key feeding areas. We’ve also been delivering a large-scale peatland restoration on our Yell Reserve, where we’re blocking historically man-made ditches to rewet hundreds of hectares of peatland. This brings benefits for carbon storage while also improving the integrity of the habitat as a whole, offering more opportunities for Curlew breeding on the bog. We’ve been doing similar work at Lake Vyrnwy in Wales and Dovestone in the Peak District.
Vegetation management has been the focus on several important reserves for Curlew. Curlews require a tussocky-but-open structure to the vegetation that offers enough height and complexity to conceal a nest, but the openness or sparsity to allow movement. At Broubster in Caithness, cattle grazing on the moorland fringe alongside targeted mechanical vegetation management has opened up new areas for nesting. This is also important when ensuring chicks, yet unable to fly, can readily move between important cover and feeding areas. Our farmland reserve, Onziebust on the Island of Egilsay, Orkney, saw numbers of Curlew increase over the last few years in response to effective cattle grazing helping to maintain the perfect vegetation structure for nesting.
Management for Curlew in action at Airds Moss reserve in the Southern Uplands of Scotland. The machines are restoring peatlands and creating wetlands, while the cattle grazing is critical for maintaining appropriate vegetation structure. © Iain Malzer/RSPB.
Creating wetlandsWetlands are important feeding habitats for Curlews. They often offer abundant invertebrate prey that chicks can glean off the surface vegetation, and soft mud that adults can probe into. Recently climate change, bringing drier springs, has been a challenge as wetlands can quickly dry out as the breeding season progresses. Some brilliant work at our Geltsdale reserve has demonstrated how effective wetland creation can be. The Howgill Beck Naturalisation Project completely transformed 430m of a canalised and perched watercourse, allowing it to connect to its floodplain once more and create a dynamic free flowing wetland and wandering braided system. Last breeding season, Curlew frequently used the wet edges and damper soils for feeding.
Over the last year, at Airds Moss in the Scottish Southern Uplands, the team have created a new wetland for waders, which, through clever manipulation of ditches and sluices will receive a consistent inflow of water throughout the season. Already, returning adult Curlew have been feeding on the edges of islands among flocks of Lapwing. Similarly, on Orkney, our reserve team have been out enhancing a number of key Curlew habitats around Rendall Moss. This has involved increasing the number wet features by creating new scrapes and reprofiling previously steep ditches to create shallow edges with soft mud for feeding chicks.
Wetland creation works at Orkney Mainland Moors Reserves. Here, the digger is reprofiling a steep ditch to create a shallow muddy edge for feeding waders. © Alan Leitch/RSPB.
Keeping Curlew safeA major challenge remains around keeping ground nesting birds safe from predators. Often our important curlew reserves are in landscapes where there are high numbers of generalist predators like foxes and crows. While some predation will always happen, we need to make sure our Curlew are producing enough young to sustain the population and support recovery. As well as directly improving the habitat for Curlew, we are exploring ways in which we can minimise opportunities in the landscape for generalist predators. Often predators follow linear features in the landscape and so we’re trying to keep these to a minimum, by, for example, limiting how many fence lines we have. Targeted scrub removal can also reduce places for predators to hide or exploit vantage points. More direct measures are being used where Curlew numbers are particularly limited, at reserves like Otmoor in Oxfordshire, temporary nest protection fences are being placed around individual Curlew nests to increase hatching rates. At Lower Lough Erne, where most of the reserve consists of a series of islands, we’re installing permanent predator exclusion fences around some of the most important areas. We hope that these measures can ultimately reduce the need for lethal control of Foxes and Crows to protect nesting Curlew.
Monitoring how Curlew respondAll this management aims to ensure our reserves offer the highest quality breeding habitats for Curlew. Over the next few months, our site teams will keep a close eye on how Curlew respond to these local habitat interventions. Monitoring involves walking set transects across the reserves, allowing us to establish how many territories there are and how the birds are using the habitats. Later into the season we try to establish whether pairs have been successful by assessing adult behaviours or spotting chicks. This monitoring will play a crucial role in guiding additional enhancements to the site as we endeavour to sustain and bolster Curlew populations on our reserves.
A mosaic of important Curlew habitats at Airds Moss reserve, with well connected wetlands, grasslands, and bog. © Iain Malzer/RSPB.
AcknowledgementsThe works being delivered on our reserves are supported by a wide variety of public and private projects and funders: CurlewLIFE project, Species on the Edge, Scottish Government Nature Recovery Fund, Natural England, Peatland ACTION, SMEEF, LELP, United Utilities, the Government's Green Recovery Challenge Fund, GMEF, Natural England’s Nature Recovery Project Somerset Coast, Levels and Moors Nature Recovery Project Area, Orkney Native Wildlife project.
The RSPB also supports the vital work of national partnerships such as Gylfinir Cymru, the Curlew Recovery Partnership England and Working for Waders
Thank you to all our volunteers who support our Curlew work both on and off-reserves.
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