Stone-curlew

Author and ecologist Paul Sterry discusses the range of issues faced by this weird and wonderful summer visitor

In this final instalment of our series, 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 the Stone-curlew: UK versus the rest of Europe, and micro-managing farming for the species’ benefit

The Stone-curlew is an unusual, open country wader that is most active after dark, as perhaps you might guess from its large, staring eyes. And the bird’s strange, eerie call is a nocturnal sound associated with low intensity farmland in southern Europe and, to a lesser degree and increasingly infrequently, in the UK.

Across much of its range it favours arid, natural terrain and fallow, low intensity farmland satisfies the species’ breeding requirements well. When nesting, and indeed for most of the time, Stone-curlews seem to like a clear view around them, so they can see danger approaching at a distance and slink away. In most parts of its range it is a shy bird and hard to observe, hunkering down and relying on its camouflaged plumage at first, but then creeping off before any threat – human or otherwise – comes too close.

Unfortunately, all is not well in the Stone-curlew world, and in its stronghold on the Iberian Peninsula. BirdLife International reckons the species underwent a 30% decline in the last decade of the 20th Century.

Unsurprisingly given its predilection for open terrain, across its range as a whole, the IUCN attributes the population decline to changes in land use, including afforestation of open county, agricultural intensification, and human recreational pressures and the resulting disturbance.

The Stone-curlew has a north-westerly outpost as a breeding species in the UK and, according to the RSPB, until recently the species was on the brink of extinction. The cause of the decline was the destruction of favoured semi-natural grassland habitat, destroyed as arable farming has expanded, intensified and industrialised in recent decades.

It’s not just the loss of habitat that’s the issue of course – Stone-curlews will nest quite successfully on open farmed land, and do so widely around the Mediterranean. The problem also has to do with timing – as with Lapwings in parts of the UK, what finishes off a Stone-curlew nesting season for good is physical destruction of nests and chicks by untimely rolling, spraying or hoeing of the land. And even early planting has an impact, if it results in crops that are too tall for the birds’ comfort in early spring.

Fortunately, it seems that all is not entirely lost for the Stone-curlew.

A few well-meaning farmers take the bird’s plight seriously, while others – incentivised by grant money – have sought to adopt protection measures as part of agri-environment schemes.

Stone-curlews feed primarily on invertebrates, typically ground-dwelling creatures including insects and molluscs

Outside the breeding season, Stone-curlews become more gregarious and post-nesting flocks gather in a few locations in the UK before they depart south for the winter

In flight, a Stone-curlew is striking and almost unmistakable, with relatively long – almost gull-like – wings and a projecting neck and tail-end

Feather care is as important for Stone-curlews as other birds, and they do adopt some rather curious poses while preening

In the UK arable fields are nowadays important for nesting Stone-curlews and farming has a real role to play in ensuring the species’ survival here

Stone-curlews can run at speed if they want to and, in many instances, this is the preferred method of retreating from danger compared with flying