Call of the Curlew
It’s never easy to see any kind of wildlife when you are out on a walk with two lively toddlers. As full of enthusiasm as they are, there is absolutely no containing the noise and exuberance with which they embark upon most adventures.
That is why I was so surprised to see the large, brown bird casually wandering around amongst the samphire and algae, unperturbed by our approach. A miraculous silence descended like a held breath. We crouched on the rickety wooden bridge, holding the lowest railing and peering through the gap in wonderment. I knew it was a curlew by the long, thin, downward curved beak. I’d seen them on the television and in books, but this was my first face-to-face encounter. It was short lived. Two little hands were tugging at my jacket and urging me to lead them into the dark, buckthorn thicket that arched over the path ahead and creaked eerily in the wind.
I now know that spotting a curlew in an estuary in August should have been unusual. By that time of the year they should have been up on the boggy heaths of East Lothian, foraging amidst the heather and bilberry bushes. Not down here on the Aberlady nature reserve. Winter is their usual time for dabbling in the rich mud of the Firth of Forth, Mawddach or Ribble estuaries, and other such sites, seeking out invertebrates with their highly sensitive beaks.
In 1942 curlew was still to be found in many UK butchers shops. As the largest of our wading birds, they provided plenty of meat and were a very common sight. Populations were at a high during this time. The inter-war period saw a boom in gamekeeping and the curlews enjoyed the drastic reduction in predator numbers.
I asked RSPB curlew expert Catherine Ramsay why, after such a period of growth, that curlews are now on the same endangered list as jaguars? Here is what she had to say:
“ Their population decline is largely due to low breeding success. A curlew pair needs to raise one chick every two years for the population to remain stable, however they are not managing to do this for a few reasons. The main reason is the loss of suitable habitat for breeding curlew. Curlew need a mix of different habitats to breed successfully, they like some drier fields with long grass and scattered tussocks of rush for nesting, and shorter, wet fields for their chicks to walk over easily and feed in. They benefit from flower-rich hay meadows which attract a variety of insects, an essential food source for chicks that don’t have long bills to probe into the ground like their parents. In June, chicks are independently walking around to forage and very vulnerable to predation, so hay meadows that are not cut until July also provide fantastic shelter. Post-war agricultural intensification has caused an increase in mono-species swards, drainage of fields and increased numbers of livestock in fields. A decrease in flower-rich hay meadows and increase of silage fields means that chicks are losing this shelter and food source early from earlier-cut silage.”
Further habitat loss was experienced during the 1960’s when the government incentivised the planting of large swathes of non-native conifers on previously unforested land. Examples can be seen all over the wetter, milder parts of the UK such as North Wales, North-West England and South-West Scotland. Areas which previously were covered by upland heath were now completely changed and rendered inhabitable.
I know that my close encounter with a curlew is an experience that remains entrenched in my memories, but I was intrigued as to Catherine’s own experience:
“Personally, my love of curlews began before I even knew what they were. I got into birding at an older age than some, I was always interested by the birds around me but hadn’t a clue of the names or how common they were, I simply enjoyed watching and listen to them as many people do. Growing up I remember being aware of these large brown shore-birds with funky looking long curly bills, and can remember being at Morecambe Bay watching them with fascination as they stuck their bills into the ground looking for food. As I began learning more about birds, I realised curlews were one of the species I was most familiar with but knew very little about. The more I learnt about them the more fascinated I became.”
Curlews are still seen and heard quite often on our shores. Are they really as endangered as we think?
“Unfortunately, the 60,000 pairs of curlew that currently breed in the UK are only half of the amount of birds that were breeding here 30 years ago. People are often surprised at this statistic, as we are used to seeing curlews in vast numbers on our coasts through the winter, how can they be in decline? However, during the winter we actually get an influx of North European breeding curlew that enjoy the weather that is much milder than where they came from.
During the spring months, curlew fly inland from the coast to farmland in order to breed. Their breeding season runs from early April to late June but they will hang around the countryside in flocks of around 60 birds before and after breeding in March and July. Fun fact: a group of curlews is called a curfew! Curlews are very faithful to their nesting sites and will return to pretty much the same field year on year to nest in. Once they have returned to their nest site, the male will use his body to make a groove in the grass for the female to lay her four eggs in. They don’t make a nest out of twigs like some other birds will, but they will try and camouflage their eggs by plucking blades of grass and dropping them on top of their eggs. After 4 weeks their eggs will hatch and within a few hours the chicks are up and off the nest, running around looking for food for themselves. Curlew chicks don’t have the long bill to be able to dig around in the soil, so they benefit from flower-rich meadows and cow pats to get access to insects like beetles spiders and caterpillars.”
We’ve discussed farming practices and forestry, but are there any other factors which have contributed to the drastic decline of this iconic bird?
“Predation is also a large reason for low breeding success and curlew population decline. The UK has the highest density of crows in Europe, and in some areas the highest density of foxes. A wide range of other predators will target curlew eggs and chicks e.g. hedgehogs, raptors, corvids, stoats and badgers. Chicks are more vulnerable to predation if they are having to travel further to find a suitable food source. High levels of predators combined with unsuitable breeding habitat has caused these declines.”
And what will this loss of curlews mean for the environment in which they live?
“Whilst probing around for food, Curlew disrupt the sediment on our estuaries. This is important process for stabilising our mudflats. It is vital that our mudflats are in good condition as they protect our coasts from floods and rising sea levels.
On both the coasts and grasslands, this probing process is also great for carbon capture and recycling essential nutrients back into the ground, helping maintain a healthy balanced ecosystem.
Farmers can benefit from having curlew on their farm as they will sift through cow pats to eat the beetles, and in doing so aid in the decomposition of the dung and fertilizing the soil. Curlew are also a wonderful natural pest control, one of their favourite foods are leatherjackets – the larvae of crane flies. Leatherjackets munch on stems and roots of plants and can do substantial damage a range of crops. So Curlew feeding on these insects can in turn increase crop yields!
Not only are curlew a key species in our ecosystem, they are also an iconic species to the UK countryside and coasts. The joy that their song provides is priceless, and many farmers talk about how they relate the first curlew song of the spring as a sign that the dark long winter is over and new life is on the horizon. They are a species that many people feel nostalgic about and like me, recall noticing and admiring in their early years. It is both wonderful and heart-breaking to hear farmers recall stories from their childhood of fields full of curlew nests and being kept awake at night from their bubbling cries. Many of those farmers now feel lucky if they have breeding curlew on their farm at all, let alone see a curlew chick.”
As an average member of the public who doesn’t really have any control over land use, we can feel a bit powerless to do anything about the plight of the curlew. Of course we can join the RSPB https://www.rspb.org.uk/join-and-donate/ but what else can we do that might start to have an impact on numbers, and is there already any glimmer of hope for their recovery?
“Many farmers are utilising government schemes to maintain suitable habitat for breeding curlew. These schemes pay farmers to manage rush cover in a way that curlew like, keep low numbers of livestock in a field and create meadows and wet features for waders and their chicks to feed in. Farmers will also spend time finding nests and marking them out so they can be avoided when cutting the fields. The farmers that are putting time, money, and effort into protecting these curlews are rewarded by seeing them successfully breed on their farm.
The curlew can recover given the proper support and regeneration of wild land. Given the variety of habitats it utilises throughout its lifetime, it is an important indicator of the general health of our natural spaces. Please share your curlew encounter stories, and any pictures, with us, we always enjoy hearing from you.
Thank you again to Catherine Ramsay for answering my probing questions (pun intended) and to our volunteer photographer Martin Campbell for his incredible pictures.