curlew Archives - Curlew Country

A Case For Curlew – A day out with Sticks and Stuff

Posted on 21st August 201721st August 2017 by Amber Bicheno

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...

False Reassurances

Posted on 11th August 201729th September 2017 by Amber Bicheno

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...

The Oakdale Saga – The challenge faced by farmers and chicks

Posted on 3rd August 201731st July 2017 by Amber Bicheno

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 ...

End of 2017 Breeding Season – Project Summary

Posted on 31st July 201710th August 2017 by Amber Bicheno

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...

Until the last Curlew Calls… Blog by Mary Colwell Hector

Posted on 4th July 201731st July 2017 by Amber Bicheno

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...

Day 21

Posted on 29th June 20171st August 2017 by Amber Bicheno

The project needs funding to help secure a future for local curlew and play its part in the survival of the wider curlew population. Please help us to secure a Country for Curlew, find out how you can help here. Curlew Fact Without essential intervention work to help the population recover, it is estimated that curlew could be lost outside moorland and upland areas w...

Curlew Champions – Final Curlew Cam day

Posted on 20th June 20171st August 2017 by Amber Bicheno

Blog by Amanda Perkins, Curlew Country Project Manager Thank you to the many people who have sent positive messages about the Curlew Cam. Unlike tree nesting birds observed by a camera, the natural departure of curlew chicks from the nest is much more abrupt and has left viewers wanting to see more of what happens to them next. We left the camera running in case the bird...

A Day’s Visit to Curlew Country’s Nest Monitoring

Posted on 12th June 20171st August 2017 by Amber Bicheno

On Monday 29th May, 2017, some of the Curlew Country team were joined by Tim Main. Tim along with others had been in touch about curlew sightings outside the Curlew Country boundaries in Shropshire. Tim came out in the hope that learning more about Curlew could lead him to help learn more about curlew behaviour and how, with some support from us it may be possible to help the n...

Adventures in Radio Tracking

Posted on 9th June 20171st August 2017 by Amber Bicheno

Amber Bicheno, Stiperstones and Corndon LPS Trainee, has been assisting with the Curlew Country Project in 2017. Find out what she’s been doing with the team this week (07/06/2017). This was the next step. It meant we had made it, at least a little further, in successfully getting some nests to hatching stage. This in itself feels like quite a feat after the depressing...

A day out with Curlew Country… by Heather Scott

Posted on 8th June 20171st August 2017 by Amber Bicheno

Heather Scott, a placement student gaining work experience as part of a Harper Adams University Countryside Management Course spent some time with Tony Cross, ornithologist and Amanda Perkins, project manager on Monday 15th May. She has written a piece about her experience. We started out from the office at about mid-day as Mandi had to catch up on urgent paperwork. As w...