On Your Farm

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On Your Farm: Curlew Safari

Curlew Safari

BBC Radio 4 - On Your Farm, Curlew Safari

Can the decline in curlew numbers be reversed?  One shooting estate has some clever ideas.

Curlew numbers have declined dramatically across the UK but Bolton Castle Estate is a stronghold. Caz Graham joins a ‘curlew safari’ up onto the moorland where they breed.

The Bolton Castle Estate in the Yorkshire Dales is a valuable breeding ground for curlews and other endangered ground nesting birds. Every year they hold a ‘curlew safari’ to give members of the public a glimpse of bird that’s sadly becoming increasingly rare. 

Caz Graham heads out ‘on safari’ with Bolton Castle’s Tom Orde-Powlett and his head gamekeeper to spot this year’s chicks, hear how management of the grouse moor also creates habitat for other wading birds and how the estate is working with the British Trust for Ornithology. 

She also meets fellow safari goers Amanda Perkins, manager of the UK Lowland Curlew Recovery Project who talks about how they are successfully ‘head-starting’ or raising chicks from eggs and wildlife writer and Cumbrian Curlew campaigner Karen Lloyd who’s edited an anthology of poetry called Curlew Calling.

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