The RSPB
has warned that the East Anglian population of one of the UK’s rarest breeding
birds, the Stone Curlew, remains vulnerable despite decades of recovery.
Numbers
of the rare migratory wading bird nesting in the East have fallen in recent
years after reaching a peak of around 290 breeding pairs in 2012.
Last
year, possibly as few as 202 pairs are thought to have nested in the East of
England. The majority – around 165 pairs – in the Brecks, with a small number
of birds breeding in other parts of the region, including the Suffolk Coast
close to RSPB Minsmere nature reserve.
Tim
Cowan, RSPB Eastern England Stone Curlew project manager, said: “The fall in
breeding numbers of Stone Curlew in the last six years is a troubling trend. To
lose up to 30% of the breeding pairs is a major setback to decades-long
conservation efforts.
“The
weather played a significant part in 2013, when a late cold snap sadly wiped
out a lot of birds that had arrived back early from migration, but more
worrying is the failure of the population to recover from that bad winter. The
fact that a one-off weather event like this can leave the population still
struggling to bounce back years later highlights the precarious situation the
UK’s Stone Curlews are still in.”
Each
spring, Stone Curlews, which spend the winter in North Africa and the Mediterranean
basin, return to UK to breed. The dry sandy soils of the Brecks and Suffolk
Coast provide the perfect conditions, because unlike familiar gardens birds
like blue tits and robins, stone curlews nest on the ground.
The
decline since 2012 follows a period of nearly 30 years during which Stone
Curlew numbers increased from a historic low in 1985, thanks to the
collaborative efforts of farmers, gamekeepers, landowners, volunteers and
conservation organisations.
Farmers
continue to play a crucial part in Stone Curlew conservation in the Brecks,
with two-thirds of the breeding pairs choosing to nest on arable farmland, and
agri-environment schemes have been key to supporting their efforts.
