Saving the curlew: How the Duke of Norfolk is joining efforts to bring them back from the brink

Arundel Castle, amid the South Downs and the Arun river meadows. ©Sarah Farnsworth for Country Life Credit: Country Life.

With the curlew–that wader with a haunting call–now almost extinct in the South of England, Simon Lester meets the Duke of Norfolk, who is hoping to pull them back from the brink on his West Sussex estate. Photographs by Sarah Farnsworth.

How exciting to hear the evocative burbling of the enigmatic curlew deep in the West Sussex countryside and to see this year’s cohort of juveniles skulking within a backdrop of pink mallow instead of purple heather.

I am at the Arundel estate to meet the Duke of Norfolk, Andrew Hoodless — the new head of research for the Game and Wildlife Conservation Trust (GWCT) — and the Duke’s headkeeper, Charlie Mellor, to learn about this pioneering landowner’s project to reintroduce the Eurasian curlew back to the South Downs as a breeding bird.

Read the full article on Country Life.