Rare stone-curlew back from the brink

Call it what you will, the thick-kneed bustard, the goggle-eyed plover or the wailing heath chicken, but no matter how you describe the elusive stone-curlew, there is no doubting its change in fortunes.

Numbers of breeding stone-curlew in England - they are not found anywhere else in the UK - have risen to more than 300 pairs, hitting a national conservation target five years ahead of schedule. The species had suffered one of the most spectacular declines of any UK breeding bird since the second world war.

Conservationists say that the help of more than 150 farmers and landowners, including the Ministry of Defence, has been crucial in reversing the stone-curlew's demise while stone-curlews elsewhere in Europe decline.  

There are two main populations of the bird - on and around Salisbury Plain and in the Brecklands, which straddle the Norfolk-Suffolk border. Now the challenge is to return the stone-curlew to areas not used for more than 30 years.

Robin Wynde, Biodiversity Policy Officer at the RSPB said: 'This has been a great success story. Our research has enabled us to work out how the bird ticks and we have put that knowledge into action with farmers and landowners to produce the goods.

'There is no doubt that without conservation work the stone-curlew may no longer have been a UK breeding bird by now. It has come back from the brink.'

The stone-curlew is about the length of a crow but slimmer, more elegant and with much longer wings. Its most striking characteristics are its long yellow legs and large yellow eyes, the power of which enables it to feed on insects at night.

In England, it inhabits dry, sparsely vegetated, open ground including farmland but on the continent the bird also nests on safe, sandy islands where rivers have divided. Spain is the bird's European stronghold. 

Stone-curlews used to number more than 1,000 breeding pairs in England before habitats were lost to arable farming and forestry after the second world war. It is one of the species most vulnerable to disturbance and its eggs and chicks are so well camouflaged that they are almost impossible to spot.

Numbers had dropped to about 160 breeding pairs in 1985 but have now reached 103 pairs in Wessex, mostly on and around Salisbury Plain and Porton Down, and 187 in the Brecks. There are smaller populations in north Norfolk, and east Suffolk, taking the total to more than 300. 

A government-backed Biodiversity Action Plan for stone-curlew, set in 1995, included a population target of 300 pairs by 2010. A new target will be adopted next year.  

Robin Wynde said: 'Now we want to help the bird re-colonise some of its former sites which used to include parts of Cambridgeshire, the Chilterns and Sussex's South Downs.

'The UK Government has a commitment to halting the loss of biodiversity by 2010. The success of the stone-curlew conservation effort is an important contribution to this goal and could act as a model for other species recovery efforts.'

Three stone-curlew chicks have fledged in two years at James Bament's 280-acre East Farm near Porton Down in Wiltshire after Mr. Bament created a five-acre plot in an area of grass set-aside, to attract a breeding pair. 

Mr. Bament said: 'The benefit was immediate and helping the birds out meant very little extra cost or effort. I feel quite proud that the birds have been able to raise young so soon after the land was adapted for them. It's good to see something be so successful because of something you have done.'

Stone-curlew projects in Wessex and Breckland are part of Action for Birds in England, a conservation programme involving the RSPB and English Nature. Funding enables fieldworkers to work with farmers to safeguard eggs and chicks during routine farming work. 

The recovery projects also work closely with the Rural Development Service (RDS), which operates the government's farming scheme called Environmental Stewardship. This scheme rewards farmers for using measures that help vulnerable wildlife. In the stone-curlew's case, this includes managing areas of fallow land and grassland to provide suitable nesting and feeding sites.

Allan Drewitt, Senior Ornithologist at English Nature, said: 'Doubling the population of this rare and enigmatic bird over the last 20 years has been a great achievement and justly rewards the efforts of landowners, the RSPB, English Nature and others alike. However, with stone-curlews now declining in many other European countries, it is becoming even more important that we work to restore them to their former haunts in England.'

Ian Davidson-Watts, the MoD's Head of Defence Estates Natural Environment Team, said: 'With about 30 per cent of the British stone-curlew population on MoD land, we take the management and protection of these birds very seriously. 

'Since the 1980's, we have worked with the RSPB to create nesting habitats on Salisbury Plain, Porton Down and Stanford Training Area and a steady increase in breeding pairs has been recorded. It is extremely encouraging that national targets set for 2010 have been reached and we hope that their numbers will continue to rise.'

Roger Griffin, Team Leader for Environmental Stewardship at the RDS said: 'We have worked closely and successfully with the RSPB and English Nature to help stone-curlews and hope to continue doing so in the future.'

Source: RSPB Public Affairs
22 September 2005