Magical creatures
AN APPRECIATION OF THE CURLEW
The call echoes down the estuary, but when I peek through a gap in the gnarled branches that line the embankment, I can’t see its owner. Only a lone egret is visible, its white feathers bright against the grey mud. I press on, heading upstream towards the sound’s origin, hoping for a glimpse of cluttered plumage and a long, curved beak. The solace of the woodland falls away and I step out onto the quay. The tidal estuary is almost at its lowest, just a small pool of water remains in the middle. A light lingering mist still swirls above it, slowly burning off in the early morning sun. Several birds slip in and out of view – ghosts in the fog, haunting the mudflats. These are Eurasian curlews, the UK’s largest wading bird, with distinctive curved beaks. And if we don’t work to protect their breeding grounds, ghosts are exactly what these birds are in danger of becoming.
This Cornish estuary is known for curlews and during the colder months you may spot one or two picking through the mudflats, using their long beaks to pluck worms, shrimps and shellfish from the thick silt. They winter here before heading inland to breed on moorland and fields, their ‘cur-lee’ call the soundtrack to hikes through the heather.
But these sights and sounds are becoming much less common across the UK as curlew populations have been steadily declining; between 1995 and 2008, their numbers fell by 42%. Only 66,000 breeding pairs remain across the country now. Habitat loss is affecting their reproductive success, and as ground breeders, their eggs and chicks are vulnerable to predation or trampling by livestock. Projects such as Shropshire-based Curlew Country are protecting breeding grounds from predators and supporting landowners and farmers to maintain habitats and grow beneficial crops. As a keystone species, the presence of curlews is important to help us better understand how a habitat is faring.
While the curlew’s call might bring us pleasure today, it hasn’t always been so. It was once believed that to hear one during twilight hours signified bad luck and to hear it during the day predicted bad weather. This link was so strong that sailors feared them, believing that seeing a curlew overhead meant a storm was brewing. However, such negative connotations didn’t protect them from the cooking pot. Curlews were once so abundant that they often featured in old cookery books. In Cornwall, they were a common ingredient in pasties and pies, the meat supplied by butchers until the early 1940s.
Back on the estuary, a small group of birds has gathered; gulls, turnstones and whimbrels – the curlew’s smaller and similar-looking relative – all competing for food as they dabble in the mud. I watch as it gets too busy for one curlew, forcing it to take flight, flashing a wedge of white rump feathers as it heads down river, the haunting call reverberating as the spectre fades into the distance.