LEARN more about the plight of the curlew at a talk in Balmaclellan on March 21.
Author and chair of Curlew Action, a charity devoted to curlew conservation, Mary Colwell will deliver part of the talk providing a national perspective on curlew decline, including the challenges and opportunities posed by modern agriculture, forestry and climate change.
She said: “Curlews are really important birds in their own right, but they also help us to have much bigger conversations about land use and conservation in this country. As soon as you start to think about curlews, you realise that they’re tied into issues which go far beyond the management of individual fields and valleys. Their annual movements and migrations from Scandinavia to the Atlantic coast remind us that everything is connected, and if we really mean to protect these birds, we need to take a look at wildlife both at home and on an international scale.”
Providing a little more Scottish context will be writer and conservationist Patrick Laurie, who will look at the future for curlews in Galloway, where the number of birds has fallen to worryingly low levels since the 1990s.
He added: “Curlews have been doing really badly in Galloway over the last few decades. They used to be some of our most common and conspicuous farmland birds, but they have now been completely lost from many parts of the county. It would have been unthinkable 20 or 30 years ago, but it’s suddenly very possible to imagine a future without curlews in Galloway. That’s a sad legacy to pass on to the future.”
The free talk with be delivered both in person at Balmaclellan Smiddy and online from 7.30 pm. For more information visit: www.gallowayglens.org.
