Please report any sightings of Curlew with yellow flags on their legs by emailing lgrayshon@gwct.org.uk - location details, behaviour and any photographs very welcome!
Sightings help us track survival, dispersal and ultimately the success of the project when reared and wild birds breed to create the next generation of lowland curlew.
The South of England Curlew Recovery Project is being undertaken across three locations, Peppering Estate, Cranborne Estate and Elmley Nature Reserve.
We are doing our very best to help the decline of the curlew population, as part of the incredible South of England Curlew Project. In May expert ornithologists and moorland keepers will identify vulnerable curlew nests and eggs in North Yorkshire, then collect them and transport them to us. We will incubate the eggs, once hatched we will rear them in pens for 5-6 weeks and then release them into the Reserve in July.
The three locations are ideal for this project as we have everything needed for success, with plentiful invertebrate food in grasses and hay meadows, coastal estuaries, saltmarshes and mudflats as well as low densities of their key predators.
Tragically Curlew numbers have been falling rapidly in recent years, due to drastic habitat changes and predation of their eggs and chicks. In lowland England there are only 250-300 breeding pairs of Curlew left. With not enough chicks fledging into adults to maintain the population, and without intervention, they will be extinct in the lowlands in 20 years.
Spring 2025 is the third year of our project to help restore curlew. Over the last two years at Elmley, we fledged 50 Curlew, with 10 GPS tracked with leg tags and flags. The first of these fledged Curlew are approaching maturity and one has paired up with a wild bird which is really exciting, giving hope of restoring the population with this project.