Flight of hope as curlews get head start on the Stiperstones

This was with the release of 33 head-start curlew chicks, thanks to the Curlew Country based in the South Shropshire Hills and Welsh Marches.

Head-start chicks are when eggs are harvested from their nest under strict licence, incubated and hand-reared to fledging, in order to protect their survival to this point.

Past research has found that the majority of nests monitored have seen pairs unsuccessful in raising to fledging stage. However it is not a long term solution, but a measure employed while research takes place to guide curlew conservation policy.

It was a sapphire blue-skied day this Monday, on the edge of the Stiperstones, that a small band of supporters witnessed the release of these head-start chicks.

To hear the iconic call and chatter of these fledglings as they quietly made their way through the cover of a hay meadow was spine tingling. One by one they experienced their power of flight as we witnessed the wing beat, some test landing near their cohorts, others fading distant into the open sky.

Hope, faith, diligence and hard work headed up by Amanda Perkins, Curlew Country project manager, was rewarded earlier this year when one of the first Curlew Country head-start chicks, hatched in 2017, was spotted to have returned to its native territory here on the Shropshire-Welsh Marches border in May. If we can achieve a similar percentage on last year’s release of 21 chicks and this year’s release of 33 chicks, then we would be coasting towards double figures returning.

I hear you say that is not enough – and you would be right. The head-start work is last resort for curlew survival. What is really needed is government policy to provide the right environment. The GWCT is now supporting the Curlew Country and to that end Amanda attended the first-ever curlew summit, held at Number 10 earlier this month.

The eminent background is that last year the Prince of Wales wrote an article “Is it too late for the Curlew?” As a result a copy of the article was put under the nose of Lord Randall of Uxbridge, the environmental advisor at Downing Street, resulting in the summit. The meeting heard that this wader should be championed as the “Panda of UK conservation.”

Also on the wish list to protect this bird, which nests in shallow scrapes in the ground, were funding for targeted, professional predator control, persuading walkers to keep dogs on leads during the nesting season and working with farmers to preserve curlew-friendly grassland instead of harvesting it for silage.

Your support is invaluable through your membership of the GWCT. Donations to the Curlew Recovery Project www.curlewcountry.org and lobbying your MP.

Tim Main is chairman of the Shropshire branch of the Game and Wildlife Conservation Trust.