The Stiperstones and Corndon Hill Country Landscape Partnership Scheme (LPS) ended at Easter. Curlew Country was one of 14 active projects that formed part of the LPS, but which evolved and grew in ways that were not anticipated before the LPS began.
The LPS has received fresh funding for a new phase of the project and will continue with its work to save lowland curlew ...
Read More
Curlew Blog
Poetry Books Raising Funds for Curlew Appeal
Tales from the Wild and Birds and Beasts
Book Review by Amber Bicheno
Two newly published booklets of poetry and prose have been released, and Author Nigel Sustins has kindly pledged that £2 from each sale will be donated to the Curlew Country Appeal.
With a local theme, both of these charming booklets evoke life in the Countryside, whilst bringing to light some of t...
Read More
Inspired by Curlew Country
Inspired by Curlew Country – Blog by Jonathan Groom
My name is Jonathan Groom and I am the Monitoring Officer for Staffordshire Wildlife Trust, and also the regional representative for the British Trust for Ornithology in Shropshire. I used to work in Shropshire and have lived there for several years now and become quite attached to the county and its birds. I have been a ...
Read More
The Curlew Cam Family
The Fortunes and Misfortunes of the Curlew Cam Family – by Amanda Perkins, Project Manager
Thank you to all of you who engaged in the Curlew Cam journey to see the hatching of chicks. Many of you said it was rather too distracting and in fact it was so distracting for us, that we had turned it off at the moment that all the action started and the chicks and adults were calling...
Read More
Curlew Calling Anthology
Curlew Calling Anthology edited by Karen Lloyd
This beautifully written and illustrated book was the brainchild of Karen Lloyd. Karen is a multi -talented artist, who became involved with the Curlew Country project when she was commissioned as part of a team working on a series of arts activities to celebrate curlew in 2015.
Karen had recently written a book about Morecombe...
Read More
A Case For Curlew – A day out with Sticks and Stuff
Blog by Amber Bicheno, Curlew Country Trainee
Between the 3rd and 5th of August I joined Sticks and Stuff’s pop up art gallery, up at the Blakemoorgate cottages on the Stiperstones. Sticks and Stuff is an arts group that celebrates nature and local landscapes, making beautiful creations out of reclaimed and natural materials. Kate Johnston is the organiser and main artist, and...
Read More
False Reassurances
Each year, someone within the project area publishes a photo of a number of adult curlew and suggests that the population level is not a problem and even that curlew are, despite the evidence, breeding successfully. Our attention has been drawn to this happening in July of this year. Below we address why this can be an issue...
The Curlew Country team work very hard ea...
Read More
The Oakdale Saga – The challenge faced by farmers and chicks
Wynford Jones and his wife Joyce were the first farmers to contact the Landscape Partnership Scheme when it was set up back in 2013. With my colleague John Brayford, I am responsible for the Farming Project and took the call. Wynford was in fact phoning not for advice, but to say that he was not interested in participating in the Landscape Partnership Scheme. To cut a long ...
Read More
End of 2017 Breeding Season – Project Summary
Did any chicks survive?
One morning at the end of the season, I received an email from a farmer in Wales to say that they had seen ‘their’ curlew family flying greater distances from the farm, and now they have disappeared. Phew – we now know that some chicks have fledged successfully and stand a much greater chance of surviving. Their first two years will be spent on the coas...
Read More
Until the last Curlew Calls… Blog by Mary Colwell Hector
It was a bitter-sweet visit to the Curlew Country project in Shropshire on June 12th. It was a baking hot day, and for a couple of hours before lunch Amanda Perkins and Tony Cross from the project, Phil Sheldrake (RSPB), Mike Smart (ace birdwatcher) and myself tried to find three or four chicks that were somewhere in a large hay meadow. They had hatched from a nest that had bee...
Read More