The UK's largest wading bird and poet's muse, the eurasian curlew, is instantly recognisable by its long legs and distinctive down curved bill.
The UK’s breeding population of Eurasian curlews is of national importance, being estimated to represent more than 30 percent of the west European population. Yet we’ve lost 65% of our curlews since 1970 due to predation and changing farm practices and they are now Britain’s highest conservation priority bird species.
Scientific name: Numenius Arquata
Length: 50-60cm;
Wingspan: 90cm;
Weight: 770g-1kg;
Average lifespan: 5 years
Eurasian curlews are mottled brown and grey, with long, bluish legs and a long, down curved bill. Females are larger than males but have the same colouring meaning it can be hard to tell them apart. In flight curlews have a white wedge on the rump.
Curlew shaking water off its back and preening its feathers
Curlew feeding with its unique down-curved bill
Curlews survive on a diet of worms, shellfish and shrimps which they find in the ground through the sensitive touch of their long curved bill. They act like a pair of tweezers or chopsticks to pincer its prey in the mud. They often toss their prey in the air before catching and swallowing, because its tongue can't reach the prey to help flick it down!
Classified in the UK as Red under the Birds of Conservation Concern 4: The Red List for Birds (2015). Priority Species under the UK Post-2010 Biodiversity Framework. Listed as Near Threatened on the global IUCN Red List of Threatened Species.
UK breeding - 66,000 pairs
UK wintering - 140,000 individuals
Curlews breed in diverse habitats and from February to July you can hear their distinctive ‘cur-lee’ over moorland, heath, wet grasslands and farmland. From July onwards they head towards the coast and large estuaries, where they spend the winter.
Although their numbers are declining, curlew can occur around the whole UK coastline with the largest concentrations found at Morecambe Bay, the Solway Firth, the Wash, and the Dee, Severn, Humber and Thames estuaries.
Greatest breeding numbers are found in North Wales, the Pennines, the southern uplands and the East Highlands of Scotland and the Northern Isles.
Find out where you can see curlew at our centres
WWT is at the forefront of plans to help curlews across farmed and lowland areas of England. On World Wetlands Day in 2017, Slimbridge hosted the first Southern English Curlew Workshop. More than 100 conservationists, farmers, landowners, policymakers, scientists and birdwatchers came together to plan the best way to help the few, isolated groups of curlews still surviving in the south of England.