Eurasian Curlew

Fascinating facts about the Eurasian Curlew

• A Eurasian curlew's bill curves downward so dramatically it looks like a sickle — and that shape is a precision tool. The tip is packed with nerve endings that let the bird feel for earthworms in mud without looking, plunging its 10-centimetre bill into the ground like a living probe. Worms buried 15 centimetres deep are still detectable. It's one of the few birds that hunt entirely by touch.
• Male curlews defend their territories with a call so loud and eerie it carries across wetlands for kilometres — a bubbling, wolf-like wail that has made them fixtures in European folklore for centuries. They sing from dusk to midnight in spring, their voices so distinctive that people in the same village have called the sound different things for generations. Today that haunting call is vanishing: populations have crashed by 85% in Britain since the 1990s.
• Curlew chicks leave the nest within hours of hatching — not fledged yet, still in fluffy down — and must immediately find their own food. Parents cannot carry chicks or feed them. Instead, the chick watches where the parent probes and learns to mimic the behaviour within days. It's a survival strategy that works only in open grasslands where predators are visible from far away.
• The journey from breeding grounds in northern Europe to West African wintering grounds covers 5,000 kilometres, yet Eurasian curlews weigh only 600 grams — less than a can of soda. They make the trip twice yearly, navigating by landmarks and an internal magnetic compass, timing their arrival at feeding grounds to match seasonal insect hatches. One bird ringed in Scotland was tracked to Mauritania and back for 11 consecutive years.
• Curlews disappeared from most lowland farmland across Europe not because the land was destroyed, but because it was improved. Drainage systems in the 1960s–1980s converted wet meadows into drier pasture for cattle, sucking away the waterlogged soil where earthworms thrive. A curlew needs 170,000 worms per year. Modern farming didn't kill the habitat overnight — it quietly removed the foundation of their food web.

At a glance

About the Eurasian Curlew

As the Eurasian Curlew glides effortlessly across the mist-shrouded wetlands, its long, curved beak probes the muddy shallows with a gentle, searching precision, uncovering the hidden treasures of its domain. With a stately, unhurried gait, this majestic bird moves through the landscape, its mottled brown plumage blending seamlessly into the surroundings as it navigates the delicate balance of its fragile ecosystem. In the soft, golden light of dawn, the Curlew's haunting, whistled call echoes across the marshes, a poignant reminder of the beauty and vulnerability of this near-threatened species.

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