This month we have heard and seen our first curlews of 2023 on the reserve. The curlew’s distinctive call is always a welcome reminder that spring is on the way, especially in the harsh environment of the North Pennines. This week we are sharing some key facts about this beautiful yet unassuming wading bird, who brings lightness to us all when it returns to the moors, heralding the end of winter and longer, lighter, warmer days to come.
The curlew is the largest European wading bird, which spends its winter on estuaries such as the Solway Firth, and its summer on the moors, such as the North Pennines here at Geltsdale. It has a distinctive, long, down-curved beak, long legs and a brown body – and of course that well-know, bubbling call. Curlews breed in a range of habitats, favouring rough grasslands, heather moorland and wetlands. They have declined dramatically in numbers, largely due to agricultural intensification of farmland and moorland (for example, drainage and reseeding) and nest predation. Because, like many wading birds, curlews lay their nests on the ground and incubate them for four weeks, with the young taking up to six weeks to fledge, they are very vulnerable to predators and to trampling by people and livestock.
Around 30 per cent of the west European curlew population winters in the UK, so this is of international importance in their conservation. Curlews were placed on the red list on the UK Conservation Status Report in 2015, marking them as the highest priority. Here at Geltsdale, we aim to protect the curlews and their habitat, through education, working with famers to restrict agricultural activities such as grazing and mowing during the breeding season and creating wetland areas on the reserve for the curlews and their chicks to feed. That way we hope we can see curlew numbers increase, so that we can look forward hearing the cry of this beautiful bird, marking the arrival of spring, for many years to come.