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Curlews breed on a range of habitats, but like rough grasslands, moorlands and bogs best of all. Intensive farming practices, including drainage and reseeding, are likely to have contributed to declines in breeding populations, as has the turning of areas of moorlands into forest.
The curlew is a very large, tall wader, about the same size as a female pheasant. Its haunting display call ('cur-lee') is unmistakable and can be heard from February through to July on its breeding grounds - wet grasslands, farmland, heath and moorlands.
Some of their preferred nesting habitats are grasslands, prairies, pastures, and even cultivated farmland. During the winter these birds inhabit beaches, mudflats, estuaries, and other shallow-water ecosystems.
They breed inland in temperate and sub-Arctic regions of the Northern Hemisphere and migrate far south. During migration, they frequent dry uplands, where they feed on insects and seeds; wintering birds occupy marshes and coastal mud flats, where they probe for worms and fiddler crabs.
In a Northern Irish study, the preferred habitat for Curlew was bog/mire and unimproved grassland, with areas of standing water, whilst the species was less abundant than expected on improved grassland, upland rough grassland and arable land (Henderson et al. 2002).
What is the habitat of a curlew? Curlews breed on a range of habitats, with rough grasslands, moorlands and bogs providing an ideal landscape for building their nests, foraging for food, and raising young.
The curlews ( / ˈkɜːrljuː /) are a group of nine species of birds in the genus Numenius, characterised by their long, slender, downcurved bills and mottled brown plumage. The English name is imitative of the Eurasian curlew 's call, but may have been influenced by the Old French corliu, "messenger", from courir , "to run".
