SUSTAINABILITY

FEATURES
30 years of saving stone-curlews
fortunes of these ‘goggle eyed plovers’.
For 30 years, RSPB field workers have
been locating nests and marking
them so they can be avoided by
machinery, and where necessary,
carefully lifting clutches of chicks out
of harm’s way and returning them after
operations have finished – what we
call ‘interventions’. This partnership
includes working with the MOD to
ensure that all of the land it manages
is in optimum condition for stonecurlews:
creating new plots, carrying
out plot management during the
breeding season, integrating with
military training, and encouraging
grazing for foraging stone-curlews
near their nests.
Stone-curlew © David Kjaer
Stone-curlews are very shy and secretive birds, and nest on
extensive open habitats of heath and grassland, so it is no
surprise that military sites have been their sanctuary.
Stone-curlew nest in no more than a
shallow scrape on the ground and lay
two hen-sized speckled eggs. Eight
military sites support between 40-45%
of the UK stone-curlew population,
and have played a crucial role in saving
this beguiling bird from near extinction
in the UK.
Historically stone-curlews would
have nested directly on grass heaths,
downland or fallowed land where
the vegetation was closely cropped
by rabbits and sheep or sparse from
cultivation. The species declined
at least from the 1930s when
agricultural intensification resulted
in crops and trees being planted
on grass heaths and downland.
Consequently, stone-curlews had to
nest more readily on land prepared
for spring crops, where nests
were inadver tently destroyed by
machiner y, and the population fell
from perhaps 1000 -2000 pairs in the
post war period to around 150 pairs
in the mid 1980s.
Because of the loss of suitable
breeding sites and the threat to nests
on cultivated land, special nesting
plots were developed as part of the
wider conservation management.
The MOD has prepared these as
part of their Sites of Special Scientific
Interest (SSSI) programmes while agrienvironment
schemes have supported
these measures on private farmland.
Here birds can nest without risk of nest
loss from agricultural management.
The loss of extensive semi-natural
grassland happened across the
breeding range of the stone-curlew,
but on many of the MOD sites this
grassland remained. These areas were
considered so important for a range
of species that many of them have
been given formal designated status
as protected areas under National and
European legislation.
In 1985, a partnership between
landowners and conservationists
began, which has turned around the
As a result of these successful
conser vation measures, the stonecurlew
population increased back
to around 350 pairs nationally, and
in 2009 stone-curlews were offcially
downgraded from Red to Amber
conservation concern, in the revised
Population Status of Birds in the UK.
The Stanford Training Area (STANTA) is
situated in the ‘Brecks’ on the border
of Norfolk and Suffolk. The Stanford
Training Area SSSI is approximately
4,500ha and contains approximately
half of the remaining grass heath
habitat within the Brecks. Hard
grazing and physical disturbance
are an essential part of grass heath
management, as this provides the
short turf and bare ground which
priority Breck species, including stonecurlew,
require.
Since 2000 the MOD have managed
17 specially created plots to create this
bare ground habitat, however, from 2015
onwards, an additional 110 plots will be
created and managed to increase the
extent of this important habitat.
It is anticipated that this work will
benefit up to 454 priority invertebrate
species, which will be closely
monitored by a PhD project. It is still
early days, but stone-curlew have
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Sanctuary 44 • 2015