Many people love the curlew’s special call and appearance, know the bird is declining, and want to see them helped. The decline of curlews followed the change in agricultural practice to early and multiple cutting for silage instead of farmers taking a later cut of hay. Curlews are now an internationally vulnerable bird, declining in numbers and are on the Red List. For the sake of their survival, biodiversity efforts are being made to protect them.
Thanks to a grant from TOE’s Local Environment Fund, dedicated volunteers from Banbury Ornithological Society and the Curlew Recovery Project have been able to protect nests along the upper reaches of the River Cherwell with temporary fencing this season. This protection has proved invaluable, enabling chicks to successfully fledge this summer.
Curlews tend to return to the same area to breed each year. As long as the curlews keep coming back to Oxfordshire to breed, Banbury Ornithological Society’s Curlew Recovery Project wants to help them and has an established and successful methodology. We hope they will return to Oxfordshire to breed themselves in the future.
