emerging from winter, and then I would search for their hidden nests in meadows and on moorland. If I was lucky, I would see their young, all feet and feathers and beady eyes. This would also be an artistic journey to explore the many connections that curlews have to poetry, literature, art and music, both in the past and today. But, most of all, I wanted to really understand what it is that is edging them closer to extinction, the environmental problems that are so huge that we are in real danger of losing them as a breeding bird across Ireland and the UK.
All this I decided at the start of 2016, when curlews were still on winter-cold estuaries and coasts. This is when they are easiest to see, gathered together for safety on mudflats, beaches or wet coastal grasslands. It would be a chance to think about the walk ahead, surrounded by the birds that mean so much to me. The nineteenth-century poet Helen Maria Williams wrote in her poem, ‘To the Curlew’:
Soothed by the murmurs of the sea-beat shore,
His dun-grey plumage floating to the gale,
The Curlew blends his melancholy wail,
With those hoarse sounds the rushing waters pour.
And so I started the year where the walk would end – on the east coast of England.
Chapter 2
The rain barely stopped falling throughout the winter that saw a wet 2015 turn into a soaking 2016. That December was the warmest and wettest ever recorded for the UK. By early January, large swathes of northern England were underwater. Thousands of people were soaked in misery, made worse by the filibustering of politicians. Further south and east, Norfolk was, thankfully, not so badly affected, but it was still drizzly and the ground sodden. This area is famous for its water. Once a giant wetland, it was drained in the seventeenth century to turn large swathes of it into more productive farmland. Now, ramrod rows of poplar and Leylandii puncture the horizon, and deep, straight dykes define the edges of large fields. They seem to stretch as far as the eye can see. Much of the land is below sea level, in some places by nearly three metres. It can be disconcerting to contemplate that the low wall along the coast seems to be all that stops the North Sea piling in on top of you.
The north Norfolk coast is separated from southern Lincolnshire by The Wash, over 15 well-defined square miles of shallow sea and tidal mudflat. Four rivers – the Whitham, the Welland, the Nene and the Great Ouse – flow into the North Sea here, depositing tonnes of sediment. When the tide is out this vast expanse of worm-filled, shellfish-rich mud forms one of the most important feeding areas for waterbirds in Europe. In winter, it is filled with avian life from all over the continent – 350,000 birds at any one time, and as many as 9,000 curlews.
As soon as I arrive in Norfolk I head for one small section of The Wash, the RSPB nature reserve in Snettisham, on the coast. The whole day has been mild and damp, everything about it redolent of wet, musty sacks. By mid-afternoon, the light is already losing its sharpness, slipping into that unsettling, crepuscular zone between thin winter light and cold darkness. In mid-winter this comes so early in the day it feels like theft.
Through binoculars, shapes reveal themselves to be a ‘herd’ of around thirty curlews. Herd is one of the collective nouns, and is not a bad description, as winter flocks generally move together and take flight as a group. The other collective is a near homograph: a curfew of curlews, possibly relating to their gathering at dusk.
Like sewing machines stitching the sky to the Earth with invisible threads, the curlews prod the ground and generally move in the same direction. They form a fragile alliance. Though focused on finding food, their nervousness is palpable. Perhaps being watched stirs some ancestral memory of being legal quarry in England before 1981, when they were regularly shot on their wintering grounds. Birdwatchers say that they are noticeably more tense in areas where they were once hunted, and Norfolk is one such place. Some call softly, a whistling sound that floats over the damp air, soothing to the ear and a balm for the soul.
My small camera is balanced on a fence post to keep it steady at maximum zoom. The picture is boring, the birds are too far away, but the sound alone fills the screen. But as I press the ON button, right on cue, the throaty rumble of a microlight edges into the soundscape and rapidly becomes a roar. Within seconds it drowns out the music of the field. The giant petrol-powered set of wings takes an age to move along. If only the creators of the combustion engine could have made it sound like a wind harp or grand piano, maybe even a xylophone. Anything would be preferable to this grating, intrusive drone that fills the sky for what seems like hours.
In any case, the moment is lost. The curlews take flight, piping as they make their way towards the sea. And perhaps the microlight isn’t entirely to blame; it is just as likely the birds can feel the shifting tide in every cell of their bodies and register the failing light as a signal to move on to a safer place for the night. I pack up and follow them.
Mud and ankle-deep puddles form the narrow path to the shingle ridge that overlooks the vast expanse of shimmering tidal flats. It offers up a strange and beautiful sight. Channels of water meander across the exposed mud, silvery sinews on a dark surface, at times taking on the sheen of mother of pearl. There seems no end to the mud; it stretches on and on towards the darkening horizon, rippled and ruffled by the water, strangely enticing and mysterious. Even the thousands of birds here are dwarfed by the vastness of the estuary. The air is filled with bird calls and a caustic, rich smell. The curlews are out there somewhere, a part of this mighty throng, big and small.
Bulky shelduck patrol the surface of the mud like avian minesweepers, their distinctive upturned bills swishing to and fro, scooping up tiny molluscs. Pink-footed geese stream in from feeding in fields: an airborne, honking choir. Neurotic redshanks strut and fuss, then take fright at the slightest disturbance, sailing into the air, emitting their high-pitched wails. The ‘Sentinel of the Marshes’ they are called, the first to warn of danger; red-legged bird versions of Lance Corporal Jack Jones in Dad’s Army – ‘Don’t panic!’
The real star of The Wash winter show is the knot. Thousands of small brown and white waders seem to be held together by magnets. They rise as one, twisting and spiralling through the sky, like a creature in agony. The display confounds predators and mesmerises humans.
The sea creeps closer, pushing the birds towards the shore. They bunch together like commuters on a constantly dwindling platform. On days when the tide is very high, they can run out of space completely and tens of thousands take to the air and stream inland. You can find yourself standing beneath an aerial river of birds. It is one of the greatest wildlife spectacles that Britain has to offer. But today there is only a middling tide, and the birds stay on the seaward side of the wall.
Just a handful of us birdwatchers are dotted along the shore, each alone with our own thoughts, bathed in evening light and surround sound of calling waterfowl. I am imagining how different this will all seem in six months’ time, at the end of May. I will arrive on this eastern coast footsore and tired after six weeks on the road. There will be greenery and leafy trees, warm air and the hum of insects. The sun still high in the sky. There will also be far fewer birds. All being well, curlews should still be on their breeding grounds and guarding their growing families. If they manage to hatch young they will be kept busy until late summer. If not, if they fail to find a suitable nesting site, or if predators eat their eggs and chicks, they will already be gathering into small flocks, preparing for winter once more. The pattern of previous years doesn’t bode well. For most curlews in large parts
