Blogs

The plan, launching later this year, sets out how to avoid curlew becoming extinct as breeding bird in Wales by 2033 and the wider benefits to society, benefits for key species of conservation concern and benefits for climate change that flow from management for Curlew.

On 19th April we highlighted an increase in the number of lapwing clutches predated by badgers at Auchnerran, our Scottish demonstration farm. Now, almost a month later, we can provide an update. 3 minute read.

Please help us work towards better advice and support mechanisms for curlew by sharing your experience through our survey.

It’s that exciting time of year again when waders start to drift back to their breeding grounds. At Auchnerran, we noticed the first flock of about 40 lapwing on 20 February, which had quickly increased to almost 120 by the 23rd.

Watch this short video produced by The Fieldsports Channel on our Waders for Real project, which aims to reverse the decline of breeding waders in the Avon Valley, with the help of farmers, keepers and land managers.

Spring 2020 has been a very different year for members of the GWCT Wetlands team, as it has been for all of us. 

Our placement students organised a small trail-camera study to try to capture any action on our newly established wader scrapes. This revealed that there were indeed some waders hanging around and one or two other things as well…

The woodcock breeding season will now be well underway. Male woodcock will be roding all across the country and most females will be incubating. Some females will already have chicks, especially given the relatively mild start to the spring. Normally, by mid-April, we are busy with spring fieldwork but under current coronavirus restrictions, none of our usual work can continue.

Curlew Country, which launches its webcam programme once again this week, has done an amazing job in getting boots on the ground – practical, hands-on working with farmers and land managers – to recover these much-loved birds that have almost disappeared from our countryside.

Nellie III has made a welcome return to the Woodcock Watch map with a series of new transmissions.