Galloway Curlew Survey
Patrick Laurie
A Galloway farmer is asking for help to count curlews this spring after national trends showed that the birds are facing a worrying decline. Curlews are a much-loved bird in Galloway, and their beautiful display calls were once a familiar sound across the region, but across Scotland their numbers have dropped by almost two thirds since 1996, and some of the worst declines have taken place in the south west.
Speaking about the 2022 survey, Patrick Laurie said “everybody loves curlews, but it’s really difficult to get a clear picture of how they’re doing in Galloway. People see them in the spring and assume that there’s nothing to worry about, but the latest science confirms a long-term suspicion that they’re really struggling to breed here.
Adult curlews return to farm and moorland habitats to breed in April, but these attempts are meaningless unless they produce young birds to join the adult population. That’s where we’re struggling in Galloway; in ten years of watching over 120 curlew nesting attempts around Dalbeattie, Kirkgunzeon and Shawhead, I’ve only seen a single young curlew fledge and fly away. That’s just not sustainable. Curlews can live for up to thirty years so they’ll keep coming back to try year after year, but if they’re not producing youngsters, the population is doomed”.
Curlew productivity is poor for lots of reasons, but predators are a major factor in the uplands where the expansion of commercial forestry has driven some of the sharpest declines for these birds. Crows, foxes and badgers will eat curlew eggs and young chicks in the hills, but these species are also an issue on more productive ground too, where silage cutting, field drainage and slurry spreading can add to the list of problems.
We have many of the tools we need to reverse the decline of curlews, but it’s hard to organise support in Galloway without knowing where the birds are and how they’re doing. That’s why Patrick Laurie is asking for people to look out for curlews between the first of April and the fifteenth of May this year; the time when most breeding birds will be setting out their territories and preparing to lay their eggs. This survey is focussed on eastern Galloway and all the land which lies between the river Urr and the river Nith, including the hills which run from Corsock to Dunscore. If you hear curlews displaying in this area during this time, it’s likely that nesting will be in progress nearby.
Curlews are farmland birds, and it’s clear that farmers are best placed to protect them for the future. This survey of curlews is being run by a number of farmers, gamekeepers and volunteers in conjunction with the Working for Waders Initiative, a collaborative project set up by a number of partners including the British Trust for Ornithology, Scotland’s Rural College and the Game and Wildlife Conservation Trust.
Explaining more about the decline of waders in Scotland, SRUC’s Professor Davy McCracken said “The Working for Waders Initiative was established five years, not only to help raise awareness of the plight of wading birds such as curlew and lapwing but also – and just as importantly – to help stimulate more targeted management for these birds on the ground. Knowing where the birds are, and what specific constraints they are facing, is fundamental to that process. We need to act quickly if we are going to be able to redress the huge declines in curlew that have occurred in Scotland over the last 25 years”.
If you’d like to record a sighting of curlews in east Galloway, please contact the project at gallowaycurlew@gmail.com