BIRDS ON THE BRINK

Each issue, the team behind Bird Photographer of the Year (BPOTY) looks at conservation issues surrounding different species from the UK and beyond, using beautiful images to inspire. This month it focuses on curlews – the plight of a beleaguered genus of

The genus Numenius comprises eight or nine species of wader, depending on which authority you choose to believe. Collectively, they are better known as curlews and whimbrels: large, long-legged birds with long, or very long, downcurved bills. Of their number, two species – Slender-billed Curlew Numenius tenuirostris and Eskimo Curlew N. borealis – have almost certainly become extinct in our lifetime. The former species bred in Siberia and wintered around the Mediterranean, and its demise was probably the result of habitat loss and degradation; the latter species, once one of the most numerous shorebirds breeding on the North American tundra, was hunted to extinction; at the height of their destruction, it is said that sometimes two million birds were killed each year.

Closer to home, the Curlew is a breeding species in the UK, and favours rough grassland and moorland when nesting. Northern Europe is reckoned to support more than three quarters of the Curlew’s global breeding population; more than 25% of that population nests in the UK. According to the British Trust for Ornithology’s Breeding Bird Survey there have been significant declines in Scotland, England and Wales, and an overall UK decline of 42% between 1995 and 2008, attributed to change of land use resulting in habitat loss and degradation. The species is also widespread in the UK on coasts outside the breeding season and data indicates a decline in both numbers and range in winter.

The Bristle-thighed Curlew is a vulnerable wader that was first discovered by science wintering in the South Pacific. Not until the 1940s were its breeding grounds located – 2,500 miles away in Alaska. Post-breeding birds fly non-stop to Hawaii and other tropical islands, where they are vulnerable to hunting and predation; their vulnerability increases during the autumn moulting period when adults are flightless. To add to their woes, rising sea levels are destroying their restricted coastal wintering habitat.

Compared to most of its wading cousins, the Curlew’s long legs and a long bill allow it access to deeper water and more squelchy, invertebraterich mud on our saltmarshes and mudflats.

Prey items for the Curlew include surprises such as the occasional small flatfish, and even a feisty Shore Crab as seen here. Undeterred by the pincers, the birds often try to shake off some of the crab’s legs to make the act of swallowing easier.

During the breeding season, Bristle-thighed Curlews favour hilly tundra in Alaska and finding one involves a hard trek and a good deal of luck.

The call of the Curlew, often delivered in flight, is an evocative sound of UK coasts in winter.

In the UK, Curlews are under threat in the breeding season due to habitat loss and degradation, and human disturbance. They have been extirpated from many of their former lowland haunts and now Britain’s upland grasslands and moors are the species’ stronghold.

The Curlew’s long bill is sensitive at the tip and allows it to find prey located deep in the mud. This one has found a juicy lugworm which it is attempting to swallow.