To a packed audience in part one of his talk, Jon described the historical decline of the Curlew. The Curlew was once a common bird throughout most of the county, and indeed most of the UK, but which has now been identified as ‘the most pressing bird conservation priority in the UK’.
The causes of the decline are various, but the severe winter of 1962/63 took its toll on it and many other species, Lapwing, Golden Plover and Snipe included. In addition to this serious blow to wildlife the Ministry of Agriculture was to encourage extensive drainage of wet grassland and the moorland edge to ‘improve’ pasture. This greatly reduced the amount of suitable nesting habitat and, along with uncontrolled predation by predominantly crows and foxes, all but sounded the death knell for the Curlew. From an estimate of around 250 pairs in the nineteen-sixties this had reduced to only 23 pairs by 1979. By 2007 only four pairs were known to breed and by 2017 Jon was reporting the alarming news that only 3 Curlew chicks had fledged on Dartmoor in the previous 15 years, and that the population was now reduced to the last one or two nesting pairs.
What can we do to reduce the decline?
In part two of Jon’s talk we learned that the Dartmoor Curlew Recovery project, funded by The Prince of Wales’s Charitable Foundation and the Duchy of Cornwall and run as a partnership with WWT, Dartmoor National Park, Natural England and the RSPB, has begun rearing chicks in captivity and releasing them into curlew-friendly habitat that is being re-created by Dartmoor’s farmers by a mixture of measures including re-wetting by stopping up drainage channels and the creation of ponds. Curlews require a short cropped sward in which to probe for grubs and this is being manged by the reintroduction of ponies and cattle in previously under grazed areas. These active conservation measures will also benefit many other species on Dartmoor.
In this five-year programme, now in its fourth year, eggs are collected from RAF bases in the east of England, where their presence is both a danger to themselves and to jet aircraft. The eggs are transported to WWT Slimbridge where they are carefully incubated for about four weeks. Just before hatching, in a technique known as head-starting, the eggs are taken to a facility on Dartmoor where the new curlew chicks are cared for in aviaries until they are old enough to fly and live independently.
After winter dispersal hope is that the birds will return to their new natal area to breed in future years. Monitoring has shown this to be the case and nesting attempts have occurred in parts of Dartmoor that haven’t seen breeding for many years. Predation however remains a serious issue and will still require addressing if the project is to be a success.
Jon finished the talk with a plea to the members, that if they come across any colour-ringed Curlews anywhere in Devon to report their sightings to the project through devonbirds.
The meeting closed with Plymouth Branch Chairman, Liz Harris, proposing a vote of thanks to Jon Avon for bringing work of the Dartmoor Curlew Recovery project to our attention, and the incredibly diverse contributions from each of its partners that are required to bring it to reality. She wished the project every success for the future of the Curlew.
