AK17 A Curlew’s Cry – Legacy Series

The three birds featured in this series are featured flying above scanned copies of John McGeoch’s ornithological record cards dating from the 1940’s.
The curlew is Europe’s largest wading bird, identified by its down-curved bill, brown upperparts, long legs and evocative, bubbling call. In the winter curlews can be seen feeding in groups on tidal mudflats, saltmarshes and nearby farmland.
In the spring and summer, curlews migrate to their breeding grounds in upland areas of rough pasture, heather moorland, and wetlands. Intensive farming practices, including drainage and reseeding, are likely to have contributed to declines in breeding populations, as has the turning of areas of moorlands into forest. Like many wading birds, curlews lay their eggs in a nest on the ground known as a ‘scrape’, making them targets for nest predators, mainly foxes, who take eggs, chicks, and adult birds but also puts them at risk of being trampled by grazing animals.