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    Curlew Moon
    Curlew Moon
    Curlew Moon
    Audiobook8 hours

    Curlew Moon

    Written by Mary Colwell

    Narrated by Jane McDowell

    4/5

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    About this audiobook

    ‘Focuses a razor light on the plight of one of our most iconic birds. Inspirational!’ Tim Birkhead

    Curlews are Britain’s largest wading bird, known for their evocative calls which embody wild places; they provoke a range of emotions that many have expressed in poetry, art and music.

    A bird stands alone on the edge of a mudflat. Its silhouette is unmistakable. A plump body sits atop stilty legs. The long neck arcs into a small head, which tapers further into a long curved bill. The smooth, convex outlines of this curlew are alluring. They touch some ancestral liking we all have for shapes that are round and smooth.

    Over the last 20 years numbers in the UK have halved; the Eurasian Curlew is one of our most endangered birds. With a quarter of the world population breeding in the UK and Ireland, this is nothing short of a disaster. The curlew is showing all the signs of being the next Great Auk.

    In Curlew Moon, Mary Colwell takes us on a 500-mile journey on foot from the west coast of Ireland to the east coast of England, to discover what is happening to this beautiful and much-loved bird. She sets off in early spring when the birds are arriving on their breeding grounds, watches them nesting in the hills of Wales and walks through England when the young are hatching. She finishes her walk on the coast of Lincolnshire when the fledglings are trying out their wings. This is also the place many curlews will return to for the winter months.

    This evocative book chronicles Colwell’s impressive journey, with beautiful illustrations by Jessica Holm, weaving a gentle tale of discovery interspersed with the natural history of this iconic bird that has fascinated us for millennia – and so desperately needs our help.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHarperCollins Publishers
    Release dateApr 19, 2018
    ISBN9780008242312
    Author

    Mary Colwell

    Mary Colwell is an author, producer and campaigner for nature. Her articles have appeared in the Guardian, BBC Wildlife Magazine, The Tablet, Country Life and many other publications. She has made documentaries for the BBC Natural History Unit in both TV and radio and has published three books: John Muir – the Scotsman Who Saved America's Wild Places, Curlew Moons and Beak, Tooth and Claw. In 2009 she won a Sony Radio Academy Gold award and in October 2017 she was awarded the Dilys Breese Medal by the BTO for outstanding science communication. In 2018, she won the David Bellamy Award from the Gamekeepers Association for her conservation work on curlews, and in 2019, she won the WWT Marsh Award for Conservation. In March 2021, she was appointed Chair of the government-supported Curlew Recovery Partnership England, a roundtable of organisations charged with restoring curlews, their habitats and associated wildlife across England. In 2020, she set up the charity, Curlew Action.

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    Reviews for Curlew Moon

    4/5

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    • 4/5
      A beautiful and lyrical account of nesting curlew in the British Isles and the various challenges that face these marvelous birds.
    • 4/5
      I really appreciated Colwell raising the often avoided reality of animal culling for conservation (needing to control certain species until a vulnerable species on which they predate recovers) and other contradictory conservation practices. And it is helpful to remember to reach metaphorically across the gulf between environmentalists and industry (though that relationship is fraught with traps) in pursuit of certain environmental goals. Another contradictory relationship she mentions is the inadvertent one between environmentalists where, for example, renewable energy may be accidentally pitted against endangered nesting birds; or the issue whereby subsidies incentivising farmers to grow trees on their fields may fail to account for making ineffective the subsidies given to the next field over for the purpose of nesting curlews because they won’t nest near woodland (for fear of predators). At one point I was a little put off by how generous (a little overly it had seemed to me at times) Colwell was about the grouse moors, but she made good arguments that added more nuance to that issue. There is a lot to love (and lament) in Curlew Moon and I enjoyed following her journey across Britain and Ireland, and hearing her notes about the character of the different lands and people she met there, but those sticky conundrums in conservation are probably what will stick with me most about this book.
    • 4/5
      One of our largest wading birds is the Curlew. To give you some idea of its size, the body is about the same size as a herring gull, but with much longer legs and rather than a bright yellow beak it has a gently curving bill, perfect for finding its food in the mud flats. They have a distinctive call that evokes so much for many people and that along with their looks has inspired poems and paintings.

      About a month ago we headed out to Arne on the other side of Poole Harbour and there were four curlews in the River as it flowed into the harbour. Sadly though, all of these things that make this bird so special for so many people are almost lost to us. Most people will have never heard the cry or seen this species of bird, and it seems that most people never will. Across Europe, numbers have dropped around 20% and in Ireland, over the past three decades, next pairs have fallen from 5,000 pairs to just 130. Rightly so it has gone on the red list.

      To see for herself, Mary Colwell decided to walk from their breeding grounds in the West Coast of Ireland to the east coast of the UK. Before this 500 mile journey begun though, she heads to Snettisham in East Anglia to see a flock of the birds. A few weeks later she arrived in Ireland to see a project in Country Antrim and begin her walk. The plan was to arrive in Wales as they were incubating their eggs,  find them with the chicks in the western part of England and arrive back on the East Coast six weeks later to see the fledgelings making their first attempt to fly.  It is this part of the country that the curlews would begin their preparations for the winter

      Colwell's journey is almost a pilgrimage in respect of these birds. She is supported by those who are also horrified by the catastrophic collapse in numbers. The writing is really special too, she is passionate about these birds in particular and her love of the natural world is clear as day in her prose. There is something else in this book too, not anger, more absolute fury, so much so that Colwell used the walk to raise money to heighten awareness of their predicament. Given that it is thought that we have lost around 60% of animals this should be essential reading for anyone interested in the subject. As a small aside, it does have a stunning 'naked' hardback cover with lovely gold blocking and has lovely illustrations by Jessica Holm scattered throughout.