[in the hills]

Hi Fleece wife.   
CurlewCountry have replied and they think that the eggs are due to hatch during the first week of June. Let's hope they make it!

[in the hills]

Polyanya and Buttermilk, It must be lovely to hear them so much. Glad they are doing well near you.


It does say that they are very easily disturbed by people when nesting. We are lucky in that we have very few walkers or tourists here and so that's not a factor for them.

[SallyintNorth]

Where are you based? Pennines, 1000ft[/size]Do you hear them? YesDo you see them? - yesDo they nest successfully near you? - I think soHow have their numbers changed in your area? Not sureIf they've declined .... Why do you thing this is? What are the contributing factors do you think? Predators? ? ? Leisure activities?What do we need to do to help them keep going? Control predators, Inc crows, foxes. Get through to idiot dog walkers to keep their dogs near them, and not run loose round nesting grounds.
As an aside, recently bawled someone out for their lab running about a known nesting site, he was nearly 300mtrs away, luckily wind was behind me, he got the dog and walked away.[/size]

Formatting, [member=22672]Penninehillbilly[/member] !!

[Fleecewife]

Where are you based? Pennines, 1000ftDo you hear them? YesDo you see them? - yesDo they nest successfully near you? - I think soHow have their numbers changed in your area? Not sureIf they've declined .... Why do you thing this is? What are the contributing factors do you think? Predators? ? ? Leisure activities?What do we need to do to help them keep going? Control predators, Inc crows, foxes. Get through to idiot dog walkers to keep their dogs near them, and not run loose round nesting grounds.
As an aside, recently bawled someone out for their lab running about a known nesting site, he was nearly 300mtrs away, luckily wind was behind me, he got the dog and walked away.

Formatting, [member=22672]Penninehillbilly[/member] !!

Are mine OK these days [member=10673]SallyintNorth[/member] ?  I've been diligent in clicking the box I was told to 

[SallyintNorth]

Are mine OK these days [member=10673]SallyintNorth[/member] ?  I've been diligent in clicking the box I was told to 

Yes, haven't had a prob with your posts since, [member=4333]Fleecewife[/member] 

With PHB's post, I couldn't read the original, never mind what it looked like when I quoted it.  Sometimes the original post is decipherable but when it's quoted it's just scribble, and sometimes the original post is too full of gobbledygook to be legible at all, as was the case with PHB's post here.

[Penninehillbilly]

Sorry SitN, hopefully more readable, dont know what went wrong, looked OK as i posted it.

[in the hills]

Penninehillbilly ..... I could read your post just like any other.


Is this just a problem when using certain devices?

[SallyintNorth]

Sorry SitN, hopefully more readable, dont know what went wrong, looked OK as i posted it.

Thank you!    I can read your answers now : very interesting

[SallyintNorth]

Penninehillbilly ..... I could read your post just like any other.


Is this just a problem when using certain devices?

Dan says it's mainly Chrome, but I use Apple devices so I'm on Safari.

Here was Dan's advice for all of you who use the WYSIWYG editor :

This was a long-standing problem with Chrome and the WYSIWYG view - do you use Chrome? If so, changing to the text view before posting (the last icon on the second row) should solve it.

The forum software we use is long overdue an update...

[in the hills]

Thanks, SITN

[Penninehillbilly]

Quite a few people in our community love our curlews, and respect them, there is usually a post about hearing the first cry, much the same as our first swallows, but they seem to come very early then disappear for a while.
We have them in our bottom fields, but perhaps only as a feeding ground, breeding ground is a field away, upland sheep grazing, not  managed, but a footpath along the edge of what i think is the breeding area, hence the problem with dogs 

[Fleecewife]

Now we no longer have our dogs ( ) we are hoping that the curlews realise they can nest here again.  We shut up 2 fields for hay in April, so they wouldn't be disturbed even by trampling sheep.  I wonder how to attract them?  Lapwings too, maybe oyster catchers.  Perhaps when they notice that larks and yellow hammers do nest in the longer grass of the shut-up fields, they will come along too 

[in the hills]

I'll try to copy links for you FW.
We basically asked the same question to CurlewCountry because we've been told that the curlew used to nest just a field away from us and we would be happy to manage our land and activities around them.
Unfortunately it would seem that our land wouldn't be ideal for them.


A few things that we found out .....
They seem to prefer fields that have been shut off from stock.
They like to nest in the middle of open fields and not near to woodland (rules us out really) because they feel unsafe near woods/hedges as it gives shelter to predators.
They like a sward of 20 to 30cm. Enough to give cover but low enough for them to look over the top for predators.




My daughter spotted the curlew again last night at about 9pm. She walked along the road and they flew right over her head and landed to feed in the opposite field. Not sure why we keep seeing 2 flying and feeding together? Maybe they haven't nested/not completed their clutch/?

[Fleecewife]

Thank you in the hills.  Our place will be out for curlew too as we have spent the past 25 years planting and nurturing bushy hedgerows all around our place, so it is now fairly enclosed (the microclimate is totally altered).  When we first came here it was totally open, just stob and wire fencing, so would have been perfect.  Ironic to think we have changed the land to the detriment of curlew, in an effort partly to attract wildlife - the law of unintended consequences  .  The next step is to spread the word locally to landowners....I feel a letter in the Parish Magazine coming on 


Are the curlew your daughter spotted ones you have seen in previous years, or are they new?  I wonder if they are like corvids which don't breed in their first few years, but do pair up?  So lovely to see them 

[in the hills]

Ooooo, maybe that's a possibility, FW.


I'm not sure if they are new or not. We certainly spotted a pair fly over the road in that exact spot last summer. So maybe that indicates they are a returning pair.


It's a road about a mile and a half from where we live and not a road we've walked along very much in the past. We have been told that years ago it was a curlew hotspot there .....lots of them in that area.


Someone that farms some of the land up there says that she hears them sometimes but has never seen them nesting.


Read yesterday that drugs used to control internal parasites of sheep and cattle can affect invertebrate populations thus affecting feeding for curlew. Oh dear! Everything seems to be against them.


Did you read on CurlewCountry that 75% of the nests were predated by either badger or foxes?!