Curlew conservation

with Wild Life Drawing and Curlew Action

I must say that painting Curlews is not something I especially look forward to, just because they don’t really suit my style of illustration, plus I find their bill really tricky to get right. So, with this in mind I thought it a good idea to give myself the opportunity to focus on the species for 90 minutes and try and crack it. The sessions with WLD are so helpful for me, as being self-employed it’s great to be given a task and have someone else organise and take charge. It has helped my art practice immeasurably, and encouraged me to tackle subjects I normally procrastinate over or simply never try.

We were working from reference images, with discussion, poetry, songs and a Curlew soundtrack provided by Mary Colwell, director and founder of Curlew Action who guided us through the challenges and conflicts these iconic waders face in our modern agricultural and coastal landscape.

I took lots of notes as well as getting a reasonable Curlew or two into my sketchbook. I liked the silhouetted birds in our image pack, as well as the flying birds. World Curlew Day is April 21st, hence the timing of our session.

How can we help? Keeping dogs on leads from March to July is beneficial for all ground-nesting birds, and more nuanced but still important, is to value the faming community who are on the frontline for conservation of so many of our species: farm veg box schemes, whether local CSA to national ones like Abel & Cole pay farmers a fair price for their produce and reduce waste, thus allowing them to allocate time and funds for wildlife and the environment.

Do you have Curlews feeding or breeding near you?