Curlew in Herefordshire

Curlew declined by 46% across the UK from 1994 to 2010 and the species was added to the UK red list in in December 2015. The exact number of breeding pairs of curlew in Herefordshire is unknown but in 2023 there were just eight territories identified, from those a total of thirteen nests were found or, known to have existed and only three chicks were seen with two surviving to attain flight. This is considerably less than the number of chicks required (one chick per Curlew pair every other year) to sustain the existing population.

In 2023 the project team began work to colour ring and satellite tag curlew to help us to discover more about the habits, movements and land use of our curlews during their stay with us in the breeding season and hopefully find out more about causes of breeding failure. As a bonus this will also provide further information on autumn/winter movements and feeding site preferences.

You can help by recording any sighting (or hearing) of curlew.