This is the same field chosen for Curlew Cam in 2022, but the male is not the same bird as the 2022 male.
Curlews were known to be site faithful historically. On farmland they are territory faithful and their large territories often span many different ownerships and managements . They forage, nest and rear chicks in different places. Curlews are birds that do not recognise boundaries and borders, they use landscapes.
Curlews are also considered partner faithful. The female does not have colour rings on her legs to identify her, so we do not know if she is the same female from 2022.
The male is a different bird to the 2022 male colour ringed ZZ by our ornithologist Tony Cross some time ago. The Curlew Cam male from the two previous years, colour-ringed FU is nesting with a new female in a nearby field.
Elsewhere in Curlew Country it is exciting to see new chicks reared as part of the Curlew Country headstarting initiative returning to breed.
The Curlew Country team had lots of fabulous viewings of migratory Whimbrels present in an adjacent field whilst finding the nest and putting up Curlew Cam. They seem to be ‘stopping over’ for longer than usual on their migratory route from South Africa to Iceland for much longer this year.
Size of Bird and Bill
We have taken a few stills to demonstrate the behaviour of both of the adult birds who take it in turns to incubate the eggs on the nest.
The first sequence of pictures shows the larger female and her longer bill (pictures 1 and 2) in comparison to the male (picture 3).
No Rest for the Birds
Whilst one bird is incubating the eggs during the day the other is acting as a guard somewhere near enough to keep in contact with the incubating bird. They can occasionally be heard alarm calling when they see a threat such as avian predators flying over. At night the guard bird, often the male, may fly up to several miles away in the landscape to rest in a safe place or near to good foraging habitat.
The bird on the nest cannot rest. It must also remain vigilant. It can often be seen foraging (picture 4) nest tidying(picture 5) and egg turning (picture 6). Rarely does it get a chance to truly rest although the occasional weary blink can be seen (picture 7).
