The Stone Curlew on the South Downs

The largely nocturnal Stone Curlew is a bird that nests on open, bare, preferably stony ground or areas with vegetation height below 2cm. Arable land needs to have short or sparse vegetation before being accepted and is rarely suitable for nesting birds beyond May or June.

The Stone Curlew

In 1768 Gilbert White advised Thomas Pennant that in the breeding season 'I could shew you them almost any day; and any evening you may hear them round the village for they make a clamour which may be heard a mile'. In 1938 Walpole-Bond wrote that there were 'quite sixty pairs of Stone-curlews breeding in Sussex'.

Changes in agricultural practices that destroyed most of the semi-permanent grasslands and the arrival of Myxomatosis, that left vegetation ungrazed by rabbits, were almost certainly the principal reasons why, after a steady decline in the 1960s and 1970s, this fascinating bird ceased to breed in Sussex in the 1980s. Its return in 2007 and its continued breeding success in Sussex is therefore most welcome and is thanks to the enthusiastic support of the landowners and the stewardship of dedicated ornithologists. It is only with the co-operation of farmers and landowners that this highly specialised bird will thrive.

And these are the same farmers and landowners who do not support the badger cull....