Curlew Blog

In early May 2019, we invited a number of our volunteers to attend an evening about curlew nest finding. The aim was to help others to help us and to improve our chances of finding those outlying curlew pairs which remain elusive. Every year we are newly reminded of the struggle to find these nests,

The haunting cry of the Curlew crept into my childish soul without my even noticing. My father kept a boat in Poole harbour, which involved hours of waiting around for his disinterested offspring. On cold winters days, I would sit in the car after primary school, while he scraped or painted or fought with wind-born

Curlew Country works closely with farming partners and is delighted that young farmer Rhian, who works with her dad and partner on the family farm, has found time to do a guest blog for us. We hope this will be just the first.  Looking Back on Last Year      Sitting in the beautiful March sunshine, last winter is still

Read part 1 of this blog here…   A national shortage of mealworms started to present us with some real concerns. The two largest UK suppliers had suffered unfortunate incidences at a crucial time, one suffering a fire and another a power failure. By banding together and rushing across the county to collect small quantities

Part 1 2018 begun with a move from the Landscape Partnership offices in Chirbury to the better-situated Natural England Offices at Rigmoreoak. The new office, although a bit cold in winter, offers the most spectacular views of our project area. It was difficult to say farewell to our old hosts and some great team members

The following blog was written by film student Billy Clapham, who joined the project in 2018 in order to create his film ‘Keeper of the Call’. The film follows farmer Wynford Jones in his efforts to protect the curlew on his land, as well as the work of the wider project. To watch the film, click here. 

Our first batch of babies have flown. The egg forms were only in their nests for a short period before they were collected by the Curlew Country field ornithologist, Tony Cross, and placed in an incubator to hatch about 30 days later. We are not supposed to be emotional, but a mixture of relief that a good number had

Unexpected Duties – Life in the Curlew Country office  My name is Amber Bicheno, and I am currently employed to assist with the Curlew Country project. This is the second year in which I have done this, following on from volunteering work with the Stiperstones and Corndon Hill Landscape Partnership Scheme. In this blog I

‘Whan the sunne shinth make hay. Which is to say. Take time when time cometh, lest time steale away’ English proverb first recorded in 1546.  There is a summarised version of this blog over at GWCT.  Twitter and Facebook have been increasingly reporting instances of silage and hay cutting during the past few weeks and views have been expressed on the possible consequences for curlew.  The hot sunny weather

CurlewCam is our very own live streaming nest camera and has just finished the streaming of 2018’s nesting attempt for viewers across the country. The camera allows the public, and the Curlew Country team, to get an up close and personal view of these secretive birds during the nesting season. The curlew’s ability, even as

As a conservation project, Curlew Country has been repeatedly pushing the boundaries and trialling new intervention methods in its implementation of curlew recovery. But who are the people behind the project – the ones pushing through these changes and fighting for all things curlew? This is the first in a series of posts all about