Terrifying decline of Scotland's curlews is robbing us of its unforgettable music – David Gray

The curlew is a special bird, and one that has captivated me ever since my father first pointed one out on a Scottish holiday, when I was just a small child. It is Britain’s largest wading bird and has mottled grey-brown plumage, a long neck, long slender legs, and a huge, curved bill.

It is this massive bill that makes the curlew a fairly easy bird to identify, and it is from this same magnificent bill that the curlew pours forth its searing, plaintive and unforgettable music.

Anyone who has stood in a windswept place and heard this haunting sound will have it printed inside them forever. It is the curlew’s superpower, an arcing, bubbling thread of song that strikes straight to the heart, and stitches people and landscapes together.

Curlew populations are in freefall in many places due to habitat loss, changes in land management and predation (Picture: Simon Hulme) | National World

Immense pressure on wildlife

You can see curlews right across the country, on coasts and in estuaries, muddy fields and marshes in the winter, and amongst grasslands, farmland, heathland, and moorland in the spring and summer breeding season. This is one of the notable things about curlews from a conservation perspective, they are a bird that is landscape-wide, and in that sense their current predicament is instructive in highlighting the immense pressure that our wildlife faces in a whole host of different landscape settings.

As you’ve probably already guessed, the reason for me writing this piece is that our curlews are in trouble. It wasn’t until I read Mary Colwell’s book Curlew Moon that I realised the full extent of that trouble, and when I did, I knew instantly that I had to try and do something. I contacted Mary’s charity, Curlew Action, and volunteered my services, and I’ve been a kind of curlew ambassador ever since, doing everything I can to raise both awareness and vital funds.

To give you a brief snapshot of just how bad the situation has become for the Eurasian curlew, their breeding population has approximately halved in England and Scotland in the last 25 years. In Wales and Ireland, it is worse, with declines of 80 and 90 per cent respectively.

These are terrifying numbers, and if the current trend continues, it seems inevitable that the curlew will soon be lost as a breeding bird from most of the British and Irish countryside. These losses are chiefly due to a chronic lack of breeding success.

Ground-nesting birds need cover

Curlews are long-lived birds, but as the old birds die out, there simply aren’t enough younger birds to replace them. There are many complex reasons for this, but there is little doubt that the two main drivers of the curlew’s decline are habitat loss and nest predation.

Increasingly intensive farming practices mean that pasture fields are cut earlier and earlier for silage. For any ground-nesting birds that need long grass for cover, this can mean that nests and chicks are either destroyed, predated, or not attempted at all. Afforestation of open and upland areas by commercial forestry plantations is another significant factor in depriving curlews of vital breeding sites across huge parts of their former range.

The other massive problem is predation. The vast majority of curlew eggs and young are taken every year. To some extent, this is the natural way of things, but the issue here is the sheer explosion in predator numbers.

The British landscape is completely out of balance. If you consider our milder winters, the endless supply of roadkill, livestock and food waste and then potentially add to it the tens of millions of game birds that are reared and released each year – only a third of which will be shot – then you begin to appreciate why the number of opportunistic predators like foxes and crows has gone through the roof. When you add in recovering populations of raptors and badgers, it amounts to enormous pressure on vulnerable, ground-nesting species.

The wonder of wild landscapes

Maybe it’s just a case of one singer sticking up for another but, to me, the curlew is more than just a bird, it is a living, speaking emblem of the wild itself. I find the idea of losing them completely unthinkable.

For clarification’s sake though, when I say that I want to save curlews, I don’t mean just curlews! What I’m really saying is that I want to save and restore the wild landscapes that they need, and all the many mysteries and wonders contained therein. The curlew’s cause is Nature’s cause.

The curlew is now a red-listed bird, which means that it’s become a conservation priority. But it’s my personal belief that if we, as a nation, are going to save curlews, then it can’t be done by a handful of scientists on nature reserves.

Rekindling childlike sense of wonder

Saving our wildlife can only really be accomplished if we can each, individually and collectively, find a way to rebuild our connection with the natural world. It’s no longer enough to just admire it from a distance, we need to step out and immerse ourselves in it. To rekindle that childlike sense of wonder. Rediscovering that love is surely the first step to rebuilding a new sense of respect and understanding.

These are desperate times for our curlews, but in amongst all the bleak statistics, there are bright threads of hope. Inspiring stories of passionate and determined people coming together to make a real difference.

If you’re so inclined, then surely the first step in taking any meaningful action should be to try and get out into the wild and see these majestic birds for yourselves. Then, just slow yourself down, and listen… because when the curlew sings, something extraordinary happens. A great tap root goes down, into all that we are, and all that we ever were, and then, as we stand shoulder to shoulder with our ancestors, we know just what it means to be windblown and alive.

A world that has no place for such ancient magic as this is a world I want no part of.

David Gray, a multi-million-selling singer-songwriter, is patron of charity Curlew Action