By Sue Evans, Director of GWCT Wales
If a small, independent group can recover 60 fully fledged chicks in just three years, just think what we could do by working collaboratively across a much larger landscape scale on both sides of the border.
Shropshire Hills and Wales-based Curlew Country, which launches its webcam programme once again this week, has done an amazing job in getting boots on the ground – practical, hands-on working with farmers and land managers – to recover these much-loved birds that have almost disappeared from our countryside, and which it is forecast could be lost in Wales in the next couple of decades, if urgent action is not taken.
The Curlew Cam 2020 pair are sitting on a nest in Wales. Their territory has several surprising stories associated with it, thanks to the farmers and land managers who have worked hard with the Curlew Country team over the last five years to protect them breeding here.
It has really demonstrated what can be done to recover these fragile populations and what is possible to reverse the dramatic declines reported over the past 25 years. Farmers love waders, and their wholehearted engagement with the recovery project has led to them wanting to deliver more for wader conservation. The essential mix to achieve conservation results on farmland is support from an organisation that farmers and land managers trust and can work with, and practical advice that understands farming and land management as well as conservation.
I, along with my boys, will now be glued to the curlew nest webcam to follow their movements, which is so addictive and gives us a good excuse to stay indoors.
GWCT Wales is delighted to be involved as host partners, helping this great project, which independently raises its own funds and delivers these great outcomes for curlew on the ground.
Featured on Springwatch last year and nominated for several awards at film festivals internationally, this Welsh curlew pair featured in a beautiful short documentary film by Billy Clapham called Keeper of the Call.
You can also head over to the Ruffled Feathers blog to read the history of this pair from ornithologist Tony Cross.
Please email curlewcountry@gwct.org.uk if you would like to stay updated on this project.