Eastern Moors

Our curlew monitoring season has begun once again. This year we are supporting the RSPB national curlew management project that aims to understand the recent declines in population and aims to redress this.

Eurasian curlew, Numenius arquata   

The UK has an estimated 66,000 pairs of curlew, which are Amber listed in the UK due to recent decline. Globally the species is classified as near threatened by the IUCN red list due to the declining population trend.

The RSPB national curlew study will help us to understand the declines by monitoring breeding success, known as productivity, and will make positive changes to habitats by implementing a range of habitat management interventions to make areas better for curlew.

Our work on the Eastern Moors includes carrying out upland bird surveys to build up a picture of the number of curlew nesting across the site and monitoring individual nests. Nest monitoring is done via a hidden remote camera that records activity at the nest and lets us see what has happened if a nest fails.    

Keeping watch: a nest camera records activity at the nest

We currently monitoring two nests, both of the pairs have been incubating for about a week, with incubation time being between 27 and 29 days they still have a while to go. It’s still quite early in the season and we hope to find a few more nests over the next six weeks.