Where have all our curlews gone? (And the corncrakes!)

 

 

 

It’s the time of year when the skies of Ireland should be filled with the distinctive sound of the curlew.
But BBC wildlife programmes producer, Mary Colwell, heard only silence as she made her way from Enniskillen to Ballynacargy and then Mullingar on foot, as part of a six-week walk she is undertaking to draw attention to the demise of the curlew.
For about 20 years, Mary has been fascinated by the Eurasian Curlew, a bird largely found in the territories between Ireland and Russia.
But in 20 years, there has been a 97 per cent decline in curlew numbers in this country. “There are maybe – at best – 160 bird pairs in Ireland,” says Mary.
In Britain, the decline is in the order of 50 per cent.
“It’s going like the corncrake: when’s the last time you heard a corncrake here?” she says sadly.
Now living in Bristol, Mary grew up in Staffordshire, the daughter of an English born dad who, though born in the city of Stoke on Trent, was mad about the countryside, and an Enniskillen-born mother, who was a city girl through and through.
She inherited a love of Ireland from her mother’s side, and from her father, the love of nature that led to her career with the BBC’s natural history unit that has seen her work with figures such as David Attenborough and Alan Titchmarsh.
Now, however, she is allowing herself time off work to undertake this mission on behalf of her favourite bird – and a bird, which, as it happens, featured in the poetry of William Butler Yeats.
“I started in Enniskillen on April 21, and I finish on May 29 on the east coast of England,” says Mary.
“I am doing it to find out what’s happening, for myself, and it’s been quite a shock to see it; and I’m doing it to raise awareness, talking to as many people as I can and talking to people in towns.”
She has been walking alone, but chatting to lots of different people along the way, and telling them about the loss of the curlew.
“Farming has changed, the bogs have been ploughed up; the early cutting of silage,” says Mary, citing some of the things that have affected the species, which is a ground-nesting bird.
The cutting of silage is happening in their breeding season; the machinery is so large that the farmers may not even be aware of where birds are nesting; farm improvement works have led farmers to fertilise and plant fields with rye-type grasses as opposed to the longer reeds in which the birds like to nest; and changes in food supply have meant that predators such as grey crows and foxes are more common.
Mary is deeply saddened at the loss of a bird that was once so common.
En route through Leitrim, Mary spoke to the youngsters in a school in Ballinamore, and found none of them had ever even heard of a corncrake.
“I told them: 'you are the first generation never to hear a corncrake, and the last generation to hear a curlew – but you will have to go out and do it quickly before they’re all gone’.”

'Let us know’ appeal
from NPWS staff
“The last mating pair we knew of were in Garriskil Bog,” says National Parks and Wildlife Service (NPWS) ranger, Tríóna Finnane, confirming that there appear to be no curlews left in Westmeath.
However, she is appealing to anyone who may know of any other curlews around to let her know. “If people do hear the curlew between now and the end of May, if they would contact us, we would be very grateful, and we can put measures in place to try and protect them,” she says.
In the midlands, the curlew would mainly be associated with areas of raised bog.
Similarly, if anyone encounters a corncrake, the NPWS would be interested in hearing of the location, since the last recorded appearance of a corncrake was in the Athlone area some years back.
If you are unsure what the curlew sounds or looks like, check out the video on the Westmeath Examiner’s Facebook page.