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There are few sounds more completely woven into the landscapes of the North than the call of a curlew.
It arrives across the moorland fringes and hay meadows in spring: beautiful, melancholy and unmistakably wild. For generations, it has been part of the natural soundtrack of places such as Nidderdale. But it is becoming quieter.
The Eurasian curlew is now on the UK’s Red List, the highest level of conservation concern, following substantial declines in its breeding population. The UK remains internationally important for the species, making the loss of breeding birds here especially significant.
Nidderdale National Landscape is now encouraging concerned residents to turn their affection for the bird into practical, community-led action - and to begin planning well ahead of the next breeding season.
Each summer, the organisation receives calls and messages from people worried about curlews nesting in fields as silage-making and grass cutting begin. The concern is understandable. Curlews nest in shallow scrapes among long grass, where eggs and chicks can be almost impossible to see from a tractor cab.
Mowing can destroy nests, kill or injure chicks and remove the cover that protects those which survive from predators. But by the time the machinery is moving, the opportunity to intervene safely and usefully may already be disappearing.
The most effective conservation work begins much earlier: identifying likely breeding fields, monitoring returning birds, building relationships with farmers and landowners, securing permissions, recruiting volunteers and agreeing what practical help might be possible before the curlews return in spring.
“Many people ask what can realistically be done to help,” says Matt Trevelyan, Farming in Protected Landscapes officer at Nidderdale National Landscape.
“The truth is that effective conservation requires a huge, long-term effort, hard work, and attention to detail.
“The good news is that we all have it within our power to help in some way or another.”
The call for action comes during Great Yorkshire Show week, when farming has once again taken centre stage in Harrogate.
The 167th Great Yorkshire Show is taking place from 14 to 17 July 2026, bringing farmers, livestock, food producers, machinery, rural organisations and tens of thousands of visitors together at the showground.
It is a celebration, certainly. But it is also a reminder of agriculture’s fundamental importance to Yorkshire - economically, culturally and environmentally.
The fields in which curlews attempt to raise their young are not abstract conservation spaces. They are working land. They produce winter forage, sustain livestock, support rural businesses and form part of farming systems already subject to tight margins, unpredictable weather and considerable economic pressure. That makes cooperation essential.
Grass cutting is faster than it once was. Larger machinery can clear a field rapidly, while contractors must work within narrow weather windows and crowded schedules. Delaying a cut can mean lost forage, reduced quality or a crop spoiled by rain.
Rolling, topping, fertilising and intensive grazing can also disturb ground-nesting birds, but simply telling farmers to stop is unlikely to create lasting change.
Instead, Nidderdale National Landscape wants communities to build projects in which farmers and land managers are supported, involved and respected from the beginning.
“Farmers and land managers must be at the heart of any project,” says Trevelyan.
“They have the power to make real change, and it is essential that they feel supported rather than criticised.”
This is important. The curlew’s decline cannot be solved by treating the people working the land as its automatic enemies.
Many farmers care deeply about the wildlife on their farms. Some adjust cutting patterns, delay work where circumstances allow or cooperate with volunteers monitoring nests and chicks - not simply because environmental payments are available, but because they want the birds to survive.
“We are seeing an increase in the number of farmers who take special care to look after the curlews on their land, seeing this as part and parcel of their stewardship,” says Trevelyan.
“These farmers are acting out of love for the bird, and a recognition that every chick counts, not simply because they are farming the payments.”
Two community initiatives are already demonstrating what this collaboration can look like.
The Darley Beck Curlew Project and the Hartwith Curlew Project work with farmers and landowners to follow birds from their arrival in early spring through to autumn.
Volunteers track territories, nests and individual chicks, gathering the detailed field information needed to make useful interventions. Their work includes thermal-sensing drones capable of locating nests hidden in vegetation, temporary fencing to protect nesting sites and close communication with the people managing the land.
The projects also extend beyond the breeding fields. They work with schools and postgraduate students, organise cultural events and conferences, and help to keep the curlew visible within public life.
This combination of science, local knowledge and community enthusiasm matters.
Knowing that curlews are “somewhere in the valley” is not enough. Effective protection can depend upon understanding precisely which field they are using, where a nest is located, whether chicks have hatched and how those chicks are moving through the landscape.
It is painstaking work, and new groups are being urged to keep their first-year expectations realistic. Before a project can protect a single nest, volunteers may need to learn how to identify birds and behaviour, acquire equipment, raise funds, approach landowners, obtain permissions, administer payments and keep everyone informed.
The human relationships can be every bit as important as the monitoring technology.
“We need passionate people to facilitate the meaningful changes which will help curlews in the long term,” says Trevelyan.
“The National Landscape can help you start a community-based project, to raise the profile of this special bird, making their plight impossible to ignore, and co-creating a curlew-friendly landscape, hand in hand with local farmers.”
Even where nests survive agricultural operations, the dangers do not disappear.
Predation by foxes and crows can leave too few chicks surviving to sustain the population. Nidderdale National Landscape says targeted, evidence-based predator management may therefore form part of a successful local conservation programme.
It is an issue capable of generating strong opinions, but it illustrates the complexity of the problem. Delaying mowing alone will not necessarily save a breeding population. Nor will fencing a nest, recording adult birds or securing a single environmental grant.
Curlew recovery requires habitat, food, low disturbance, successful nesting and enough chicks surviving through to fledging. It also demands years of consistent attention rather than one season of emergency action.
Some farmers may be eligible for government funding for environmental work benefiting curlews through schemes including the Sustainable Farming Incentive, Countryside Stewardship and the Farming in Protected Landscapes Programme. The Nidderdale team can help land managers understand the available options.
Communities can also play a role when development is proposed near the protected landscape. Curlews depend upon open country and relatively quiet nesting areas. Date-stamped photographs, accurate field notes and records showing where birds are present can be submitted to local authority ecology teams and considered during the planning process.
Again, the emphasis is upon preparation and evidence rather than outrage after decisions have already been made.
Wild birds, their active nests and eggs are protected under the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981. In practice, however, the legislation recognises circumstances in which nest destruction may be an incidental consequence of a lawful operation that could not reasonably have been avoided.
Where delaying mowing would cause serious forage loss, crop spoilage, contractor disruption or disproportionate economic damage, prosecution is extremely rare.
The answer, then, should not rest principally upon punishment.
It rests upon knowing where the birds are, discussing the situation early enough and finding workable solutions with the people whose livelihoods are tied to the fields. There is something quietly hopeful in that approach.
The curlew has become a symbol of the ecological losses taking place across the British countryside. But protecting it could also create stronger connections between residents and farmers, between villages and their surrounding land, and between the food a landscape produces and the wildlife it supports.
This week, agricultural excellence is being celebrated a few miles away in Harrogate. In Nidderdale, the curlew offers another measure of a healthy working countryside: not land preserved untouched, nor land exploited without limit, but a landscape in which farming, wildlife and communities find ways to continue together.
“Protecting curlew requires cooperation between farmers, communities, conservationists, planners and local authorities,” says Trevelyan.
“No single measure is enough on its own, but together, these efforts can make a real difference.”
The curlews will leave their breeding grounds as summer ends. Those hoping to welcome them back next year should not wait until their nests are again hidden beneath the spring grass.
The work begins this autumn.
Anyone interested in developing a community curlew project can contact Matt Trevelyan at Nidderdale National Landscape by emailing matthew.trevelyan@northyorks.gov.uk or calling 07745 544872.
Header image: Hay Making in Nidderdale. Image: Paul Harris
