Curlew

[Scully]

There was a time I often heard this hauntingly wailful call, and it was as if I’d been hearing it for centuries. There is something about the call of a Curlew that is nostalgic to the point you believe you’ve lived a previous much simpler life, but I haven’t seen or heard a Curlew for years, until last week when it was such a welcome sight I even felt it necessary to mention it to my OH. 
I still see and hear Peewits as we call Lapwings locally, and the call of Oyster Catchers, the latter of which always reminds me that better weather is approaching as I hear then spy them on the rooftops, and I’m pretty sure it was the constant alarm call of one of these which ruined a brief decoying attempt the other week. 🙂

Many moons ago on long summer nights I would leisurely stroll ( accompanied by a Winchester Model 12 ) the moorland and marsh of my brother in laws farm, not overly worked by heavy farm machinery, and would often just sit and watch the sun sink towards the horizon while Curlews called and the bats would flit about in the rapidly fading light. It never bothered me that I hadn’t fired a shot, and it would have seemed rude to do so anyhow. 
Anyhow, since moving nearer the Fell bottoms I haven’t ( contrary to my expectations ) heard a single call, and if  one of the books I’m currently reading is anything to go by, I can now understand why. 
It is titled ‘Native’, brilliantly and eloquently softly written by a man named Patrick Laurie. It is all about one man’s attempts to once again create a farmland habitat where these fabulous birds were once common. 
I am quite familiar with the landscape of Galloway, and the cattle breeds which inhabit it, but others on this forum will know it better. You don’t have to be a local to enjoy the book however, and I can recommend it to all of those who like me, enjoy a solitary amble amongst the reeds and hedgerows, with or without a gun. 

Edited June 11, 2022 by Scully

[ditchman]

there is quite a large (almost commercial)  breeding programme going on in i think Wickham fen for curlews...and turning out to be very successful...saw some pics of the set up.....looks like a large pheasant hatching breeding set up.....so its a serious thing

when i hear the sound of a curlew particuly on an estury my heart rate really slows down ..and i almost shut my eyes..and start to nod off.....its a very sort of lonely / comforting sound...and makes you feel as if you are the last person in the world...

strange.. 

[Scully]

5 minutes ago, ditchman said:

there is quite a large (almost commercial)  breeding programme going on in i think Wickham fen for curlews...and turning out to be very successful...saw some pics of the set up.....looks like a large pheasant hatching breeding set up.....so its a serious thing

when i hear the sound of a curlew particuly on an estury my heart rate really slows down ..and i almost shut my eyes..and start to nod off.....its a very sort of lonely / comforting sound...and makes you feel as if you are the last person in the world...

strange.. 

That’s good news indeed! 
I know exactly what you mean Ditchy; weird how it makes one feel! 

[islandgun]

The call of the curlew, wild geese talking in the autumn sky, whooper swans against a snowy backdrop, sights and sounds guaranteed to make me stop short and remember another life......I will look out the book, cheers

You have probably read Ian Niall another writer/wildfowler from Galloway worth a look if not

Edited June 11, 2022 by islandgun

[Mice!]

49 minutes ago, ditchman said:

there is quite a large (almost commercial)  breeding programme going on in i think Wickham fen for curlews...and turning out to be very successful...saw some pics of the set up.....looks like a large pheasant hatching breeding set up.....so its a serious thing

when i hear the sound of a curlew particuly on an estury my heart rate really slows down ..and i almost shut my eyes..and start to nod off.....its a very sort of lonely / comforting sound...and makes you feel as if you are the last person in the world...

strange.. 

I read a couple of articles on lapwings on fb this week, those lapwings ( might have been curlews) have likely cost 20-30 thousand pounds each they were saying,  the problem being that various gulls are pretty much eating every egg or chick with little that land managers can do, while lapwings are red listed and the gulls Amber listed, despite lapwings being in the hundreds and the gulls easily 20,000 plus, because they only have to meet one of the 7 criteria to be listed.

 

[Scully]

38 minutes ago, islandgun said:

The call of the curlew, wild geese talking in the autumn sky, whooper swans against a snowy backdrop, sights and sounds guaranteed to make me stop short and remember another life......I will look out the book, cheers

You have probably read Ian Niall another writer/wildfowler from Galloway worth a look if not

I’ll give it a look thanks. 👍

[Walker570]

Just read where the staff at a miltary airfield are checking any nest which are close to the runway and may get disturbed. They are collecting the eggs which will be incubated and then the chicks released when strong enough. Excellent.

[jall25]

1 hour ago, Walker570 said:

Just read where the staff at a miltary airfield are checking any nest which are close to the runway and may get disturbed. They are collecting the eggs which will be incubated and then the chicks released when strong enough. Excellent.

Yes I dont think its that they would disturb the birds though - its that they are worried about collisions 

Until recently the nests were simply destroyed or so i read in article. It may have been RAF Waddington or Wittering 

 

Up here the issue is cutting for silage - just as the birds get started the grass gets cut - they lay and its cut again - any that have managed to survive then face yet another cut. Not only the cutting but the absolute monoculture of grass - practices must change - or we will lose so much more. 

[oldypigeonpopper]

Hello, nice one Scully , many on here can remember back in the golden years where you could hear and see many bird species that is not so much today, not a cuckoo again this year but while sat in the motor yesterday having lunch  while watching hares chase each other. and to think back again we had hare shooting days, 

[Scully]

1 minute ago, oldypigeonpopper said:

Hello, nice one Scully , many on here can remember back in the golden years where you could hear and see many bird species that is not so much today, not a cuckoo again this year but while sat in the motor yesterday having lunch  while watching hares chase each other. and to think back again we had hare shooting days, 

Indeed. We once had Hare drives of which I was an eager participant. 

[Walker570]

More and more dairy farms are going zero graze and a big part of this is theTB problem with the number of badgers spoiling the grazing. Zero graze and TB problem goes away. Zero graze as you say causes grass to be cut four or even five times over the summer for silage. 

[Scully]

19 minutes ago, Walker570 said:

More and more dairy farms are going zero graze and a big part of this is theTB problem with the number of badgers spoiling the grazing. Zero graze and TB problem goes away. Zero graze as you say causes grass to be cut four or even five times over the summer for silage. 

There is a theory that it’s not just the frequency that grass for silage is cut, but also at the speed that modern machinery allows it to be done. Makes sense when you think about it. 

Edited June 11, 2022 by Scully

[marsh man]

I can go back to the time where we eagerly waited for the first Spring tide in September to have the first crack at the ( Lew ) , this would be when we would get a full tide and most of the salting's would be covered by water except a small area which would rarely cover , we would put up to 20 silhouettes out on the mud at different angles and wait for them to come down to roost for the night , we would be lying in our gun punt up one of the narrow drains that had high grass either side and would be pretty well unseen , we could whistle a very similar call and I can well remember the Curlew would answer back while heading towards the decoys , a good flight would be a dozen or more and they were just about edible , as the season wore on we left them alone as they were not worth the trouble cooking them .

Writing this post took me back to the time when our old coal man saw some lew hanging up in our coal house ( which was a shed in the back yard ) , and said when you go again I will come and have a go , I knew he used to do some punt gunning so I agreed to take him along the next time I go , well the night arrived and I met him up our boot shed , he had a pair of old trousers on , a rough old jumper and a sports jacket that had seen better days , still as it was September we didn't worry about how we were dressed as long as it was drab clothing and it certainly was drab .

When he drew his gun out of his home made sleeve it was a under lever 10 bore and mine was a Midland Gun Co 3 inch hammer gun , so having stowed all the gear in the punt we made our way across the river to what is known locally as the Lumps , we put some decoys and waited for the first ones to come down , when the first one started to call I tried to call him back in range  , when he was a good 45 / 50 yds away old Charlie lifted his gun and with one shot it was as dead as Dodo , this wasn't a fluke as if I remember rightly he killed five for seven shots and all of them were well out , also we are talking about a frail old man who was way past retirement age and wafer thin , this was the only time he came shooting with me and it will be remembered until my time up .

Would I ever shoot any more Curlew if they went back on the list  ( Will never happen ) No , like many other species , happy now just seeing them.

[Walker570]

1 hour ago, Scully said:

There is a theory that it’s not just the frequency that grass for silage is cut, but also at the speed that modern machinery allows it to be done. Makes sense when you think about it. 

I shoot on a dairy farm and see the damage the machinery can do to wildlife.   The mowers are so fast and so wide these days that anythng in the grass does not stand a chance. Unfortunately if you want milk in your tea and on your rice crispies then that is the way it has to be. 

[Dave at kelton]

Pleased to say I still see and hear plenty of curlew here in Dumfries and Galloway. Never shot them even when I could due to there reputation as pretty bloody awful to eat. On the subject of gulls a friend is in the Trough of Bowland where the problem of gull colonies is massive with red listed birds such as Curlew.

Up here most of the grass is cut by contractors, massive machinery and rattling through the farms as fast as they can but I guess we can’t turn the clock back.

[Scully]

2 minutes ago, Walker570 said:

I shoot on a dairy farm and see the damage the machinery can do to wildlife.   The mowers are so fast and so wide these days that anythng in the grass does not stand a chance. Unfortunately if you want milk in your tea and on your rice crispies then that is the way it has to be. 

I do too, and yes, speed seems to be the thing nowadays. All labour saving devices of all kinds, seem to do, is allow us to do more of the same, but faster.
Contractors and even the landowners themselves, seem to have no time to take their time, and for obvious reasons. 
A mate said he tried to give the birds we released time to get away when he was silaging, but the contractors couldn’t get done fast enough, and then onto the next farm. 

5 minutes ago, Dave at kelton said:

Pleased to say I still see and hear plenty of curlew here in Dumfries and Galloway. Never shot them even when I could due to there reputation as pretty bloody awful to eat. On the subject of gulls a friend is in the Trough of Bowland where the problem of gull colonies is massive with red listed birds such as Curlew.

Up here most of the grass is cut by contractors, massive machinery and rattling through the farms as fast as they can but I guess we can’t turn the clock back.

It was you I had in mind with my reference to some on here will know the area better. Dalry, Kircudbright and one or two other places local to you, where the book is based, feature in the book. 

I enjoy most books I read, and the ones I’m sorry to finish are few and far between, but this is one of them. 
 

[Mice!]

1 hour ago, marsh man said:

so having stowed all the gear in the punt

I've read about punt guns before,  but we were at the Leeds Armouries museum again the other week,  we somehow missed the fifth floor last time, well they have some punt guns on display,  and videos of punt gunning,  I couldn't believe how big they were.

53 minutes ago, Scully said:

Contractors and even the landowners themselves, seem to have no time to take their time, and for obvious reasons

I had a video come up this week of grass cutting,  the speed and size of the equipment being used must mean little has a a chance of getting out of the way, certainly not chicks.

1 hour ago, Dave at kelton said:

On the subject of gulls a friend is in the Trough of Bowland where the problem of gull colonies is massive with red listed birds such as Curlew.

Something I hadn't considered was the damage they also do where they nest, one of the articles I read said they also destroy the area they nest through feces and vomit, and won't nest on the same ground next year but move to fresh ground,  which then destroys that, and that its totally unnatural because years ago bears, wild boar or humans would have stripped the nests of eggs which is why they nested on cliffs, but the lack of predators and change in waste management meant the gull numbers rocketed.

[marsh man]

9 hours ago, Mice! said:

I've read about punt guns before,  but we were at the Leeds Armouries museum again the other week,  we somehow missed the fifth floor last time, well they have some punt guns on display,  and videos of punt gunning,  I couldn't believe how big they were.

I had a video come up this week of grass cutting,  the speed and size of the equipment being used must mean little has a a chance of getting out of the way, certainly not chicks.

Something I hadn't considered was the damage they also do where they nest, one of the articles I read said they also destroy the area they nest through feces and vomit, and won't nest on the same ground next year but move to fresh ground,  which then destroys that, and that its totally unnatural because years ago bears, wild boar or humans would have stripped the nests of eggs which is why they nested on cliffs, but the lack of predators and change in waste management meant the gull numbers rocketed.

THANKS for sharing the photo's of the display about punt gunning and the guns on display , some real beauties who could tell a few tales about what was looming in front of the punt on a Winters day .

The second photo look very much like a days Coot shoot on Hickling Broad in the late 40s or early 50s when the local punts would take the guns across the Broad to wait for the Coots that were driven towards them , the guns were mainly made up with royalty and the well to do , huge numbers were shot and they were shared out amongst the villages which were gladly accepted.

As an example number wise , on the 27th January 1951 a team of guns shot 961 Coots and a few duck making the bag 979 head.

A year earlier on the 11th February 1950 a team of guns shot in a gale of wind while sitting in gun punts a total of 457 Coots ,not the easier boats to be shooting from in windy conditions .

 

[Dave at kelton]

12 hours ago, Scully said:

I do too, and yes, speed seems to be the thing nowadays. All labour saving devices of all kinds, seem to do, is allow us to do more of the same, but faster.
Contractors and even the landowners themselves, seem to have no time to take their time, and for obvious reasons. 
A mate said he tried to give the birds we released time to get away when he was silaging, but the contractors couldn’t get done fast enough, and then onto the next farm. 

It was you I had in mind with my reference to some on here will know the area better. Dalry, Kircudbright and one or two other places local to you, where the book is based, feature in the book. 

I enjoy most books I read, and the ones I’m sorry to finish are few and far between, but this is one of them. 
 

Will try and get a copy of that book.

[ditchman]

3 hours ago, marsh man said:

THANKS for sharing the photo's of the display about punt gunning and the guns on display , some real beauties who could tell a few tales about what was looming in front of the punt on a Winters day .

The second photo look very much like a days Coot shoot on Hickling Broad in the late 40s or early 50s when the local punts would take the guns across the Broad to wait for the Coots that were driven towards them , the guns were mainly made up with royalty and the well to do , huge numbers were shot and they were shared out amongst the villages which were gladly accepted.

As an example number wise , on the 27th January 1951 a team of guns shot 961 Coots and a few duck making the bag 979 head.

A year earlier on the 11th February 1950 a team of guns shot in a gale of wind while sitting in gun punts a total of 457 Coots ,not the easier boats to be shooting from in windy conditions .

 

yew aint sein nuffi until yew experienced a billy bell coot shoot..............

 

(wear body armour)

[jall25]

15 hours ago, Walker570 said:

I shoot on a dairy farm and see the damage the machinery can do to wildlife.   The mowers are so fast and so wide these days that anythng in the grass does not stand a chance. Unfortunately if you want milk in your tea and on your rice crispies then that is the way it has to be. 

I dont think it has to be that way 

 

[Walker570]

52 minutes ago, jall25 said:

I dont think it has to be that way 

 

I come from a farming fanily where we milked a large herd in those days...28 head....of shorthorns and the milk was delivered by hand in 5 gallon buckets carried up to back doors and measured onto jugs on the door step. Believe it or not the world has changed in 70 years to where a housewife needs to pick up a carton of milk from a her local store(if lucky) or the supermarket and at a price near or even below what the pint was back in 1950 (equivalent).  I am afraid this so called progress has meant hat things have to be produced at pace and within a budget. Contractors cannot come and cut your silage today with a finger mower and slow enough for a pheasant to rise ahead, they have a string of customers who want their silage cut today within the hour almost.  I do not see that changing.  Progress has never in my lifetime been stopped but sometimes I wish it had.  They where joyous times back in the 50s when you could stop the tractor and sit and eat some fresh mad scones and drink tea brought in a botlle by the farmers wife into the field.

[Scully]

3 hours ago, Walker570 said:

I come from a farming fanily where we milked a large herd in those days...28 head....of shorthorns and the milk was delivered by hand in 5 gallon buckets carried up to back doors and measured onto jugs on the door step. Believe it or not the world has changed in 70 years to where a housewife needs to pick up a carton of milk from a her local store(if lucky) or the supermarket and at a price near or even below what the pint was back in 1950 (equivalent).  I am afraid this so called progress has meant hat things have to be produced at pace and within a budget. Contractors cannot come and cut your silage today with a finger mower and slow enough for a pheasant to rise ahead, they have a string of customers who want their silage cut today within the hour almost.  I do not see that changing.  Progress has never in my lifetime been stopped but sometimes I wish it had.  They where joyous times back in the 50s when you could stop the tractor and sit and eat some fresh mad scones and drink tea brought in a botlle by the farmers wife into the field.

And basically that’s what it all boils down to really. Money, time and demand. 
A farmer local to me has over a 1000 milking Fresians; he milks four times a day and that first cut is direct. He’ll maybe take four cuts throughout the growing season and those cows will seldom if ever step outside. 
I’m not blaming farmers, some of my best friends are farmers, it’s just the way of the world nowadays. 

Edited June 12, 2022 by Scully

[Walker570]

Yep...progress and all accelerated every day by humans demands.   Farming is an industry and no different from soya bean production they are now being told to produce more in the UK to save the planet but then told they have to lay aside a portion of their property for wildlife when that portion could be producing food which we have to import to meet our needs.    We can't have a simple Britsh produced meal these days with papers full of ideas of how to cook a meal 50% of which has to be imported.  I understand that even our home produced wine is taxed to the hilt.

[ditchman]

31 minutes ago, Walker570 said:

I come from a farming fanily where we milked a large herd in those days...28 head....of shorthorns and the milk was delivered by hand in 5 gallon buckets carried up to back doors and measured onto jugs on the door step. Believe it or not the world has changed in 70 years to where a housewife needs to pick up a carton of milk from a her local store(if lucky) or the supermarket and at a price near or even below what the pint was back in 1950 (equivalent).  I am afraid this so called progress has meant hat things have to be produced at pace and within a budget. Contractors cannot come and cut your silage today with a finger mower and slow enough for a pheasant to rise ahead, they have a string of customers who want their silage cut today within the hour almost.  I do not see that changing.  Progress has never in my lifetime been stopped but sometimes I wish it had.  They where joyous times back in the 50s when you could stop the tractor and sit and eat some fresh mad scones and drink tea brought in a botlle by the farmers wife into the field.

used to love drawing the finger mower..the farm has 2 one working off the pto thro a pitman arm the other one was worked thro the ground wheels....if they were sharpand well maintained they did an awesome job....made a lovely sound as well.....then they were followed up with a crimper and a pheasant and a spider after that....baled the next day..