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On Your Farm, Curlew Safari


Mr.C
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Curlews always nested in the river meadows about half a mile from my house until about 20 years ago.  Before that - my father owned them and used to keep people out in nesting season and either use for grazing or cut for hay - after the curlews had gone.  He made a point of asking all local dog owners to keep out during the nesting season.  It passed out of our family about 20 years ago - when they started on silage instead of hay (cut much earlier).

Now I don't think any curlews nest there - and it is overrun with dog walkers who allow their dogs to chase anything that moves - and overflown by buzzards and red kites.  Present owners are very conservation minded - but aren't very local and I never see anyone there from the owners, though they have gone back to hay rather than silage.

 

Edited by JohnfromUK
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See very few of either curlews of lapwings here over the last 7/8 years with no change of habitat.  Lapwings were about in largish flocks up on the moor during the colder seasons and Curlews nested in the moor edge meadows.

Some farmers have even asked to have corvids shot over fields where they were known to be nesting.

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7 minutes ago, Scully said:

The cry of a curlew at dusk is one of the most soulful and hauntingly beautiful sounds to be heard in my opinion.

"THE curlew tolls the knell of parting day, The lowing herd wind slowly o'er the lea, The ploughman homeward plods his weary way, And leaves the world to darkness and to me."

Poem by Thomas Gray.

https://poemsofthefantastic.com/elegy-written-in-a-country-churchyard/

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Farming is so intense that lots of birds and animals suffer.

Used to see lots of curlews and skylarks nesting. Still see the odd ones but not in big numbers. There breeding somewhere as I've seen bigger and bigger flocks of them over last five years or so.

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36 minutes ago, Scully said:

Thanks for that

I think strictly it was 'curfew' - which had a different meaning (that of a 'passing bell' which indicated a death) in the 1750 to the 'lockdown' now understoof by 'curfew'.

However 'curlew' is often found in print as well.  The originl handwritten manuscript is in the British Library I think.

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47 minutes ago, JohnfromUK said:

"THE curlew tolls the knell of parting day, The lowing herd wind slowly o'er the lea, The ploughman homeward plods his weary way, And leaves the world to darkness and to me."

Poem by Thomas Gray.

https://poemsofthefantastic.com/elegy-written-in-a-country-churchyard/

I must learn that by heart, beautiful.

Yes we had a few curlew here every year some 30yrs ago but now gone. All old hay pastures now ploughed up for green stuff to generate electricity.

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Luckily enough we still hear and see a lot of Curlew on and around the estuary , at one time when they were legal quarry they were like an apprenticeship to wild fowling , if you could get on terms with them , then you were ready for the better wildfowl , we did manage to shoot several but they were not the best when it came to eating them , September they were just about edible but when they turned to the mud flats later on for food they were best left alone , I for one would never raise my gun again to a Lew even if they ever came back on the list , which I very much doubt they ever will .

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3 hours ago, figgy said:

Farming is so intense that lots of birds and animals suffer.

 

I used to stop the tractor and put a post in to mark oystercatcher nests so as not to accidentally damage the eggs doing later groundwork. And for me the true sound of spring was the call of the first curlew arriving on the hill above the house. In many ways the birds defined the year.

When farming is done almost exclusively from a cab with the radio on it must diminish the job.

Edited by Retsdon
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