Curlews: Yorkshire estates holding 'curlew safaris' to help wading birds thrive in the Dales

But now, as one of the species’ “last strongholds”, the sporting estates of the Yorkshire Dales where the wading birds still thrive are to open their doors for curlew ‘safaris’.

This is gamekeepers, and estate owners across Wensleydale and Swaledale, working together for the conservation of a threatened treasure nationwide.

Eggs and chicks, raised here by hand, are also being sent to the South Downs to repopulate breeding territories in southern England where they are on the verge of extinction.

At the Bolton Castle estate, Ian Sleightholm is head gamekeeper. Many people, he said, don’t realise how vulnerable these birds are.

“This is raising awareness of the curlew and the curlew’s plight,” he said. “They are so rare.

“The call of a curlew is the sound of the Dales, the sound of life, the sound of spring,” he insisted. “The Yorkshire Dales is a last stronghold.

“While the rest of the country is in massive decline - we are stable if not increasing. They are doing so well on our managed estates.”

The curlew is Britain’s most endangered wading bird, with a population decline of about 60 per cent since the 1980s.

The safaris, an hour-long tour in a jeep to see red-listed moorland birds with gamekeepers in the Dales, covers estates at Swaledale and Wensleydale over the first weekend in June. Already, it’s nearly sold out, with proceeds to charity.

For the Yorkshire Dales Moorland Group, it’s been an “exceptional” year for curlew. Bolton Estate, a member of the Moorland Association, has a record 220 nests - as many perhaps as across the whole of the south of England.

Tom Orde-Powlett, estate owner, has now begun to donate curlew eggs. From the neighbouring Duke of Norfolk’s estate, at Arkengarthdale, chicks are also to repopulate.

Curlew are four times as likely to fledge a chick successfully on a grouse moor as on similar habitat without gamekeepers, scientific research has shown. This, findings suggests, comes down to predator control, habitat management, and close working with local farmers.

“They are ground nesting birds,” said Mr Sleightholm simply. “Everything wants to eat them, or to trample them.

“Our gamekeepers are passionate about grouse and about all the birds. They are working with farmers and on lower ground to monitor nests to help chicks and provide a safe haven.

“Every estate, from river boundaries to the moorland, is keepered,” he added. “We all talk, and that local knowledge, with keepers and farmers, works for the birds.”

The safaris, by jeep, will see gamekeepers take guests on a tour, taking a less-trodden path far from footpaths or roads.

As well as the curlew, there are redshank to be seen, golden plover, snipe or ring ouzel, buzzards, merlins, sparrowhawk, kestrels, or peregrin.

This is the “perfect” time of year, said Mr Sleightholm, as the chicks are hatching and as spring turns to summer. Here, the seasons shape the moors; from the purple plumes of autumn to the bitter winter of frozen fields. This year has seen a difficult winter.

Born and brought up in Wensleydale, Mr Sleightholm has been gamekeeper for 17 years. Every time he leaves the Dales, he said, these hills draw him back.

“They are magical,” he said. “I was brought up as a birder. Having this abundance of wildlife on my doorstep is just a dream. On safari, with the keepers, that passion comes through.

“There’s a lot of talk about the nature crisis. Sat in the Dales, with the curlews singing and the lapwing dancing and the cuckoo’s call - it is good therapy for the mind. A special place.”

And when it comes to the curlews, he said this is so conservationally important.

“There’s not so many people in the Dales, we’ve got to work together,” he added. “Things have to happen on a landscape scale to have an impact on the environment.”