The Brecks is a unique landscape spanning approximately a 1,000 square kilometres across south Norfolk and north Suffolk with its own distinctive climate, geology and habitats. Famous for its dry and sandy soils and extreme differences in temperature the Brecks is also home to unusual habitats including the UKs largest lowland pine forest, rare grass heaths, wildlife rich farmland and unusual water features. The Brecks is home to an array of wildlife, nearly 13,000 different species in total, including the iconic stone-curlew.
This year the RSPB are celebrating the thirtieth anniversary of the stone-curlew project. The RSPB, alongside farmers, gamekeepers, landowners and other conservation organisations have been working in the Brecks since 1985 to turn around the fortunes of these shy and elusive birds. Through nest protection and habitat management work, monitoring shows the fate of stone-curlews in the Brecks has been turned around from less than a 100 breeding pairs 30 years ago, to approximately 259 in 2012. The stone-curlew project is a flagship for partnerships making a difference on a landscape scale.
Stone-curlews are easily disturbed birds, to view them safely in the Brecks without disturbing them please visit the Norfolk Wildlife Trust’s Weeting Heath Nature Reserve- www.norfolkwildlifetrust.org.uk/wildlife-in-norfolk/nature-reserves/reserves/weeting-heath;
This April with the start of spring, the stone-curlew field workers have been out and about in the Brecks on the look out for nests, and later on in the year for young. This year, we are providing a glimpse into what it’s like for the team!
Jo Jones, who has been working tirelessly with the stone-curlew field team since 2010 and this year she is offering us a peek into her diary to find out about those special moments out in the field.
2 April 2015
Just been welcomed back by farmers and walked my first field. Biting wind, mud sticking to boots. There are lots of signs of spring with skylarks singing, rising ever higher to the sky, lapwings displaying, broad wings twirling, brown hares crouching to the ground, hardly visible, sprinting off when I’m within feet of them. Excited to be back and looking forward to telling farmers that they have a pair of stone-curlews on their field!
Lapwing by Andy Hay (rspb-images.com)
3 April 2015
I find a pair of stone-curlews on a plot specially set aside for them by the farmer. This pair successfully fledged a chick here last year. I am delighted to see them back. They don’t look at all chuffed to see me... they crouch down, watching me carefully with their large yellow eyes. Their whole aim in life – their survival strategy for breeding success – is not to be seen. I’d searched for them with binoculars, not found them and only saw them when I walked across the plot and they started to edge away. I don’t want to disturb them and get back in my vehicle and slowly drive off. I look for them as I drive past where I know they are. They are the size of a woodpigeon, on long legs. I am driving within 30 metres of them. Yet they have vanished. Such is the power of their camouflage.
A pair of oystercatchers zip past my bonnet, peeping loudly as they go, bright long orange-red bills, followed by black and white flash of wings. I feel like the Queen having a fly past of the Red Arrows. In the next large sandy field I search, a long way from any water, a female mallard’s head comes into view. Whatever next...
Stone-curlew by Andy Hay (rspb-images.com)
7 April 2015
Yellow brimstone butterflies and peacocks are out in the warm spring sun... or below:
Sitting on the bank of an ancient earthwork for lunch, I see my first peacock butterfly of spring. At least, I think that is what it is but it is darting so quickly over the dry grasses I find it difficult to see clearly. At last it settles on a seed head for a few seconds and I get my binoculars focussed on it. I catch my breath. I feel like I have never seen anything so beautiful. The luminescent purples, blues and oranges of the eyes on the wings are beyond the glory of the most glorious stained glass windows. Only the dark furry body is a reminder of the more prosaic caterpillar from which this flighty creature emerged. Seconds later I see toughness to this creature that I had not expected.
A bumblebee arrives in its vicinity and the peacock chases it away, on its tail until it literally buzzes off. Next a small tortoiseshell butterfly has the nerve to land nearby. The larger peacock moves in quickly and the two twirl upwards, rising to tree height, fighting for the rights to this piece of ancient grassland. The peacock wins and comes back to land on its successfully defended patch. It’s like the magic stuff of children’s storybooks being played out for real in front of my eyes.
Peacock by Graham Madge (rspb-images.com)
9 April 2015
I see my first wheatear of the season on an uncultivated corner of a field. I am always delighted to see these birds with their smart dark grey heads and black eye patch as they pass through the Brecks on their way to breeding grounds further north. They are a sure sign that spring is well on its way. I am never so pleased to see them in September when they are a sign that my field season is near an end.
I find my first stone-curlew nest of the season. I’d seen a pair of stone-curlews melt away as I watched and sure enough I find two eggs, laid in a shallow hollow of earth, scraped out by the parents. They are the size of a chicken’s egg, but dappled with brown marbling, making them almost invisible against the sandy flinty ground. If the birds made any more of a nest their eggs would lose their camouflaged disguise.
The bit of field they have laid on is due to be sprayed tomorrow. I tell the farmer the nest’s location so he can avoid driving over it with his tractor. He is delighted ‘his’ pair of stone-curlews are back and have laid already. “We must look after them, Jo,” he says with a broad smile.
10 April 2015
From a patch of scrub and trees I hear a blackcap sing briefly, a ‘warming up’ ‘I’ve just arrived’ version of its song that soon will be more lengthy and melodious. A mistle thrush has been disturbed and is letting out its loud football rattle alarm call, while a chiffchaff constantly sings its two note song, which gave this tiny brown bird its name. A wren adds to the chorus with its loud long trilly song.
15 April
I look across a newly cultivated field. A pair of brown hares are boxing, silhouetted against the sun, their fur edges glitter. Both hares are standing tall on their hind legs, ears straight, as if to maximise their height, fore-paws going at each other like crazy. One eventually drops to the ground and is chased off, the loser of that round.
Brown hare by Chris Gomersall (rspb-images.com)
17 April
On a piece of heathland I find a pair of stone-curlews. The male runs to the female, strutting towards her on his long yellow legs, pushing his chest out in front of his body. When he reaches the female, which is sitting on the ground, he bows deeply, his long beak nearly touching the ground. At the same time he arches his neck, and stretches his yellow legs tall and raises his tail in the air so maximising his height and the depth of his bow. She turns her head in the other direction! Then slowly she gets up and cautiously wends her way through bushes of heather, picking off insects with her straight long yellow, black-tipped, beak as she goes. I am viewing this pair from a long distance with a scope as I don’t want to disturb this most easily disturbed of birds. I see she has a colour ring. Excellent!
We mark stone-curlew chicks with a unique combination of three colour rings and a metal numbered ring so viewing them later we can assess how the population is doing and if our work is making a difference. All I have to do now is manage to see all three of these rings on her legs... then I can work out who she is. Her history and identify this pair through this season’s breeding season. I manage to see a second colour ring, dark blue. The third ring is harder. Somehow the bottoms of her legs are always hidden by grass, heather, or a clump of nettles. I wait and at last I catch a quick glimpse of the third ring, light blue. Now I have seen the three colour rings and metal ring. Or, as we say, have read them. Now I am able to look up her history.
This bird was hatched at Weeting Heath, 10 miles to the north, two years ago. Since then she will have been to North Africa twice - twice more than me - to winter in the sun. Without maps she comes back to the vicinity of where she was hatched. I know the person who ringed her will be delighted to know she has survived until now – the first year, when there is everything to learn, being the most difficult to survive. This may be her first breeding season. I look forward to observing how it goes.
Top Image: Chris Knights (rspb-images.com)
Bottom Images: Stone-curlew pair by Andy Hay (rspb-images.com)