Phew😅These two 36-day-old #curlew chicks narrowly escaped the mower’s blades thanks to a thermal drone rescue. 🔥 A big shout-out to our #farmingheroes. 🚜 Reach out if you suspect chicks in the grass before cutting – our drone is on standby! @sustainablefarming.bsky.social @farminguk.bsky.social

All the wrong kind of drama today... Picture this: fields with curlew chicks hiding being cut for silage! Enter Bruce, our cool curlew champion contractor. 1/

☔️Persistent rain for today's filming with Fiona Morley Patterson from Border TV… so here's her visit last year. Only yesterday was glorious for Mark Lowther's to show how tidily curlews tuck up their extra long legs.🦵 1/

Let's hear it for the curlew dads 🎉, proving size isn’t everything. Smaller in size but large as life.👏They take on crows like the ⚔️ Battle of Britain. 💥 🎖Here’s to the fathers who give their all, every single day. 🍻 Happy Father's Day 🍻

Pair of #curlew chicks from a second nest, found with our thermal drone. 3 eggs. 3 hatched and ringed, their sibling was getting it's bangle fixed when we took this little video. You're welcome.

Update: 10 nests hatched, 37 chicks, 11 nests sitting
6 nests lost: 3 to stoat, 1 to crows, 1 suspected infertile, and a sheep mishap.
Weather turned from dry to squally showers. Curlew conservation is full of is full of highs and lows, the team's out working hard as always 🫡

🚜Last night a #farmer saved my life
Bruce 🦸‍♂️😇(contractor) lifted mower while cutting when a #curlew flew up in front of him. Nice one Bruce 💪#Respect #nest_24 #FarmingHeroes

First Chicks 🐥

Nest #19

Misty dawn breaks soft,
Curlew soars in morning light,
First of May takes flight.

View our latest newsletter online here: mailchi.mp/e7b0897db1c2... And sign up to get these in your inbox here: mailchi.mp/.../newslett.... No need to worry, we we don't send many - we're too busy looking out for signs of nesting.

✨ ah! Carol heard a single call by her wood.
And now John has thirty feeding together. Thirty birds, fresh from the west, feeding on the wet ground, dripping salty miles from their feathers. 🌍
Hooray for them. Hooray for their calls. 🎶
Hooray for the fields that remember them.
Spring is here. 🌿

🌍 Our first curlews are back✨
👏 Debs saw and heard the first pair, just as she did last year. Then Terry in Burneside & John near Crosthwaite. 👏
💚 They’ve come from Ireland, Spain and Portugal - the long pull of memory has brought them home. 🌿🎶
And just like that, Spring is assured.