the complex tunnels and pathways made by buried worms and shellfish far more easily than a straight bill would allow. Straight-billed wading birds, like godwits and oystercatchers, rapidly jab into the sediment and take their prey by surprise. Curlews do it differently; they plunge deep and use the bulbous, sensitive tip to feel around. The nerve-filled end of the bill opens independently, the tips acting like a pair of remote-controlled tweezers. This is made possible by joints in the skull which can push the upper bill forwards so that it can act alone. With its finger-tip sensitivity it is remarkably good at detecting deeply buried food. It is also ideal for poking around in the surface nooks and crannies of a rocky shore. The length allows access to food out of reach to those less endowed in the bill department.
Curves have their disadvantages, though. Structurally, they are weaker than straight bills and have to be strengthened by internal struts and thickenings. The reinforcements narrow the internal passage so that a curlew’s tongue can’t reach down to the tip to help extract and swallow buried food. It has to withdraw its bill and then move the food to the tongue by jerking its head. Big prey, such as crabs, are winkled from their hiding places and tossed around, often violently, before being swallowed. You can see curlews shaking them so hard their legs fall off (the crab’s legs, not the curlew’s) before they are moved to the top of the bill and down the gullet.
The prominence of the bill has, inevitably, set our imaginations whirring. In some areas, a local name for curlews is whaup, partly referring to the sound of one of its calls, but also because it evoked folk memories of those half-human, malevolent little people that plagued generations gone by. A whaup was an evil, long-nosed, thin-necked goblin that ran around the roofs of houses at night. They were notoriously mischievous and spread rumours and bad luck. ‘A whaup in the nest’ refers to some brewing unpleasantness, or the hatching of evil plans. A Scottish Highlander’s prayer asks to be protected from ‘witches, warlocks and long-nebbed (nosed) things’. The curlew became synonymous with these negative notions and in some places it became a bird to be feared. A long bill, finely tuned by evolution for feeding in muddy environments, must also, it seems, give rise to unfortunate connections with our complex, cultural world.
A curlew’s bill may be the feature that catches our eye, but when it opens and starts broadcasting, it is the sound that captures our soul. The experience of hearing the call of the curlew is, for me, akin to what C.S. Lewis described as being ‘surprised by joy’. For Lewis, joy is not merely happiness, it is far deeper and unfathomable. He describes it as an unexpected, centuries-old upwelling of longing and desire that has somehow always been there but has remained unnamed. It is usually fleeting, overwhelming, always complicated, always layered. It has associations with memories that we can never quite define. ‘All Joy reminds,’ says Lewis. ‘It is never a possession, always a desire for something longer ago or further away or still ‘about to be.’4 The late Terry Pratchett, in A Hat Full of Sky, had an earthier turn of phrase: ‘Joy is to fun what the deep sea is to a puddle. A feeling inside that can hardly be contained.’ This is the surprising joy evoked by the varied calls of the curlew, whether it is the bubbling mating song tumbling in cadences from a summer sky, or the simpler, arrowed sound of its name, firing across the reaches of a mudflat in winter. Pure, unmitigated joy.
Curlews are highly vocal and have something to say in most situations. Their calls range from harsh barking and yelping to growling and soft, low whistles – and much else in between. They have specific sounds to communicate with developing chicks inside the egg, to call their mate to warn of danger, to scare away predators and to mark their territory. The signature call, the one from which the bird gets its name, is coorli or curlee, which is often heard as the bird takes flight over moorland and estuary. ‘Lancing their voices/through the skin of this light’,5 as Ted Hughes described this soul-aching cry that lingers in the air long after the bird has flown. If you imagine the shape of the call as a word, it is also curved. The ending of curlee rises in tone, similar to the pen-stroke flourish of a flamboyant scribe. Both the call of the curlew and its bill are curlicued.
But perhaps the most haunting song is a melody that can lighten even the most desolate of days – the bubbling call, most often heard in the breeding season. It is a gradually building trail of notes that rises up through the scale, sounding louder and ever more urgent as the bird flies skywards. As the call ends, the curlew then swoops through the air on stiffened wings. One anonymous poet described it as:
A crescendo of
sound bubbles
bursting in cadences
of liquid joy.
The cry bursts forth from the bird’s lungs through its binary voice box – two tubes that work in harmony to produce a richness of tone that intertwines both the major and minor keys, confusing our emotions. The bubbling call is ecstatic, both full of life but with deeply melancholic undertones. ‘Such trifling themes as life and death are kept in Curlew’s calls …’ wrote A.W. Bullen in his poem ‘Curlews’. ‘If my voice could be anything like theirs … if only … I would swallow my share of lugworms to know their truths …’
Lord Edward Grey, ornithologist and politician, found a sense of calm and hope in the music of the new moon bird:
Of all bird songs or sounds known to me there is none that I would prefer than the spring notes of the Curlew … The notes do not sound passionate, they suggest peace, rest, healing joy, an assurance of happiness past, present and to come. To listen to Curlews on a bright, clear April day, with the fullness of spring still in anticipation, is one of the best experiences that a lover of birds can have.6
For many, to hear a curlew is to listen to the wild. It is music that crystallises the range of emotions that well to the surface when standing on a lonely moor or walking through a spring meadow. Like adding seasoning to a dish, their calls add highlights or depth to the landscape. You might hear the ‘sweet crystalline cry’ recorded by W.B. Yeats, or perhaps the more melancholic ‘lingering, threadbare cry’ noted by another Irish poet, Thomas Kinsella. Alfred, Lord Tennyson only heard bleakness and described calling curlews as ‘Dreary gleams about the moorland flying over Locksley Hall.’ You may, though, feel happiness and hear Ted Hughes’ ‘wobbling water-call’ and smile.
Curlews are shape-shifting sprites that tease and tangle our emotions. Their evocative cries are aural keys that unlock our secret thoughts, and have inspired poets, artists, writers and musicians from time immemorial – and still do. This is perhaps all the more remarkable, given that their appearance is relatively unprepossessing. Looking past their beak, their colouring is less than striking. From a distance, they may even seem a little dowdy. But as with many works of art, the true beauty is discovered in the detail. At close quarters, the intricate patterning of brown, grey and cream feathers is exquisite, shimmering with the rippling tide or merging into the bright colours of a flower-filled meadow. Rain, cloud or sun bestow different characteristics. But to see the loveliness in curlews requires more than a passing glance.
G.K. Chesterton understood that what can appear dull on the surface often belies a shifting palette. When challenged about the drabness of grey as a colour, he asks us to consider an English village on a dull day. To some it may seem boring, but watch a while and it is a wealth of charm. ‘Clouds and colours of every varied dawn and eve are perpetually touching it and turning it from clay to gold, or from gold to ivory … The little hamlets of the warm grey stone have a geniality which is not achieved by all the artistic scarlet of the suburbs.’ This can only be seen by taking enough time to absorb the ever-changing delights. So too with curlews; to watch them in rain or sunshine, at dawn or dusk, is to see a restless beauty adorning a muddy marsh.
While many creative juices have flowed at the sight and sound of curlews, many gastric ones have, too. Being the UK’s largest wading bird, they have provided flesh for the pot for centuries. It is illegal to hunt them now, but before they were protected by the Wildlife and Countryside Act
