Curlews are birds of great conservation worry in the United Kingdom, with numbers falling sharply this century. As standard, there are a variety of causes for this, starting from lack of habitat and disturbance to unsustainable ranges of predation. Curlews are long-lived birds, so their decline isn’t all the time obvious, with pairs returning yearly to their favoured nesting space, regardless of no longer having fledged any chicks for years.
Right here within the Brecks – a space of deficient, sandy soils at the borders of Norfolk and Suffolk – we’ve a small however vital breeding inhabitants. Colonisation of the Brecks began in 1947, and by means of the early Nineteen Fifties a strong inhabitants of round 12 pairs had turn into established. They favour the outdated heaths, however plenty of pairs additionally breed on farmland.
Brettenham Heath Nationwide Nature Reserve holds the easiest density of nesting Curlews within the Brecks. It’s surrounded by means of a Fox-proof fence
Nobody turns out rather certain what number of pairs there are nowadays, however my bet can be between 20 and 30. One of the vital causes they do smartly this is predator keep watch over, for Foxes are rather strictly managed by means of gamekeepers and landowners within the space. Analysis by means of the Sport and Flora and fauna Conservation Agree with has proven that predation by means of Foxes (of each eggs and chicks) is likely one of the maximum critical elements proscribing the good fortune of nesting Curlews.
The go back of the Curlews to the nesting heaths is likely one of the first indicators of spring, for the birds begin to transfer again from their wintering grounds at the coast on the finish of February. Originally of this month I looked at Brettenham Heath Nationwide Nature Reserve, an intensive heathland reserve a couple of miles north of my house, and was once thrilled to each see and listen to my first inland Curlew of the yr. The glorious effervescent music of the Curlew is likely one of the most lovely of all hen songs, and is likely one of the explanation why many of us care so passionately about this hen.
Yellow IM, the colour-ringed Curlew, on Thetford Heath, March 2024. She was once ringed at the Dyfi Estuary in West Wales in 2021
This month I’ve since noticed Curlews on two different native heaths: Knettishall (simply two miles from house) and Thetford Heath (ten miles away). I controlled to {photograph} the hen on Thetford Heath, an glaring feminine along with her very lengthy beak. (Men have noticeably shorter beaks.) What I didn’t understand till I downloaded my pictures (above and under) was once the truth that she have been shade ringed, with a purple ring on her proper leg, and inexperienced ring above yellow on her left leg. A snappy test on the net published that there was once an on-going shade ringing venture going down in Wales, and it appeared possibly that this was once the place my hen have been ringed.
Yellow IM within the lengthy grass, her rings not visual. Her lengthy beak signifies that she is a feminine
An electronic mail to Tony Move of the Mid Wales Ringing Staff introduced a fast answer. Sure, he showed, it was once certainly one of his birds, however may just I learn the digits at the hen’s yellow ring? This proved to be a combat, because the hen was once rather far-off after I photographed her, and I simplest had a few deficient photographs appearing the rings. She had then walked into lengthy grass the place her legs weren’t visual.
We in the end labored out that her ring was once Yellow 1M, revealing that she have been ringed on the RSPB’s Ynys-hir Reserve at the Dyfi Estuary in West Wales in October 2021. (That’s 250 miles from the place I photographed her.) The next Would possibly she was once discovered on a nest with 4 eggs at RAF Honnington (4 miles from my house) by means of Harry Ewing, an ecologist with Herbal England. The heath the place I photographed her is only a quick flight clear of Honnington. Regardless that Honnington is a Royal Airforce base with an intensive air box, no flying takes position there anymore, so nesting curlews aren’t a risk to army plane, as they’re on different RAF bases in East Anglia.
Tony advised me that “the colour-ringing is a part of a venture aiming to check the breeding spaces, iciness locations and survival charges of Curlews breeding and wintering in Shropshire/Mid Wales. Within the remaining 8 years just about 700 Curlews were personally colour-marked with re-sightings in Cornwall, Devon, Norfolk, Pembrokeshire, Cardiganshire, Shropshire, Denbighshire, Carnarfonshire, Cheshire, Lancashire, Cumbria and Lanarkshire in addition to Counties Cork, Galway, Waterford, Wicklow and Wexford within the Republic of Eire, Jersey, France, Spain, Sweden and Finland. Over 150 headstarted Curlew chicks have additionally been colour-ringed as it’s important to evaluate the go back charges and survival of those captive-reared folks too.”
The day sooner than I photographed Yellow 1M I’d learn an interesting article within the weekly mag Taking pictures Instances, written by means of Liam Bell, head gamekeeper on a family-owned property in South Shropshire, no longer a ways from the Welsh border. His piece began with the daring remark “Our curlew are again. If there’s any other hen to which landowners and land managers connect such possession, I haven’t heard of it. It’s all the time ‘our curlews are again’ no longer ‘the curlew are again’. At all times ours.”
He went on to put in writing that “Time was once when each farm within the dale had nesting curlew, however they have got slowly disappeared. Or, to be proper, have virtually disappeared, however now fortunately have began to make a little of a comeback. The will increase on my patch are small, however in the community vital and because of a number of issues: the best way the person who farms the bottom manages his inventory and his haylage fields; our striking up electrical fences round nesting websites to stay foxes, badgers, canines and, dare I say it, other people at bay; and the arduous paintings installed by means of the keepers at the property to scale back the chance of predation of the eggs and chicks by means of carrion crows and foxes.”
A Curlew accompanied by means of a Black-tailed Godwit at the estuary of the River Alde at the Suffolk coast
Predator keep watch over is a arguable topic, however there’s indubitably that with out it, our populations of ground-nesting birds like Curlews and Lapwings will proceed to say no. It’s additionally the explanation why ground-nesting waders, corresponding to Curlew and Golden Plover, breed a lot more effectively on keepered Grouse moors than they do on adjacent unkeepered land. It’s a incontrovertible fact that combatants of Grouse taking pictures (and there are lots of of them) most often forget about.
I will be able to be conserving an eye fixed open for Yellow IM this spring. The likelihood is that that she is going to go back to Honnington to reproduce (Curlews are very web site devoted), so let’s hope that she manages to nest effectively.