This year, I’ve had the pleasure of working with the South West Peak Wader Partnership to support breeding curlew on our Northern nature reserves. The partnership is led by RSPB, working with farmers, landowners, and other nature conservation organisations in the South West Peak District area to survey and monitor breeding wading birds such as curlew, snipe and lapwing. Long term, the partnership aims to work collectively across the South West Peak landscape to improve habitat quality and monitor the success of our wading birds.

This year, Peak Wildlife Park kindly funded nest protection kits - each one includes electric fence materials, a battery energiser, and a trail camera for monitoring the birds. A team of volunteers are responsible for surveying farms and reserves to locate potential breeding pairs, followed by locating the nest and finally, setting up the temporary electric fence. The electric fence is to protect the nest from predators such as badgers and foxes eating the eggs, and also protects from any livestock which may accidentally trample the nest. 

You can watch a short clip from the trail cam footage below.

We held a training session for the volunteers at our Black Brook nature reserve, where curlew have nested previously. It was in April and it was still feeling very chilly, but the curlew turned up for our surveying session and later nested on site, so the volunteers got to use the speed fence building practice to protect this nest. The fence is erected in less than 30 minutes, to minimise any disturbance to the birds. 

Our Black Brook nest had two eggs. Curlew usually lay up to four eggs, so this was a small clutch, but both successfully hatched. We got some lovely footage of the adult birds on the nest, though sadly missed the hatching itself. We’ll try again to capture the hatching next year!

The birds remained in the area raising their chicks. With any luck these birds are now on their migration to milder lowland areas for the winter, and I look forward to seeing them next year and building on this nest protection scheme.