Notes from RSPB Conwy

Day 1.

Hello Wales! This morning I got a lift, thanks to an old friend and colleague Katerina, from Llanrwst in Conwy Valley to a passing place near the smaller village of Ysbyty Ifan. Here I’d planned to meet Lucy Foster (the local Curlew LIFE project officer), Samantha ‘Sam’ Lee (national Curlew LIFE project manager), and others from the Welsh RSPB team. After a short wait for Sam, who’d driven down from Edinburgh fuelled by Irn Bru, we left the roadside and set off for a walk through boggy fields carpeted with haircap moss. On the way, we chatted about land-use and how a number of factors aren’t working in the curlew’s favour. Small patches of forestry, for example, put curlews off from nesting nearby since they associate tree cover with predators (we’re not the only ones who are scared of the woods). That said, it’s a mystery why curlews are missing from other seemingly ideal habitat. As much as we understand some of the issues behind the curlew crisis, there are still plenty of unknowns. Towards the end of the walk, we walked through one of their main ‘hotspots’ in Conwy, where about six or seven pairs are nesting. Several adults were busily chasing crows, buzzards and red kites, who pose a constant threat to their eggs and chicks. While crows are sometimes killed as part of predator control, red kites and buzzards are legally protected. The red kite, once persecuted to near extinction, has been a conservation success story in the UK, but their abundance makes things even harder for curlews.

After the walk, Sam dropped me off at my B&B in Penmachno, on the other side of the valley, and I went to see what I could find in the village shop. The best thing I could find was a coffee cake, which I’m about to sit down and eat with a knife and fork.

Day 2.

I struggled to get to sleep last night (possibly due to eating an entire caffeine-laced cake), which would have been bad enough, were it not for a fire alarm that went off at three. I was completely alone in the building, so didn’t know exactly what I was meant to do. I stood bewildered outside the front door in my pants for a minute or so, looking out fuzzily into the sleeping village for help. Nothing stirred. The streets were eerily quiet, as if the alarm had awoken me to the news that all other humans had left earth. Calling 999 seemed unwise, given that there was no sign of any fire, but I couldn’t find the number for the landlords either. I decided to try the house next to the B&B, where I thought one of them might live, and, eventually (after a lot of knocking), a man who turned out to be called Keith came to the door in his slippers to rescue me. We both said sorry to each other in true British style and he dislodged the spider from the fuse box.

Sam picked me up barely an hour later, and we drove back to the curlew hotspot we’d been shown yesterday. The sun was creeping up and a few curlews were calling. As we walked out towards a raised area on the edge of their nesting grounds, time momentarily stood still as the sunrise reflected off the wings of a songbird fluttering above the marsh.

I was keen to show Sam how the parabolic dish and microphone works. I still vividly remember the first time I carried out some soundscape recording. It was a revelation - a bit like getting an instant ear upgrade. Crouching down among a reedbed along the Fife Coastal Path on the east of Scotland, I sat there transfixed as a Whitethroat came and sung right next to me. You can still find that recording on my website. Soundscape recording has for me always been about losing myself in listening.

Sucking in the curlews

It wasn’t long before Sam discovered the dangers of not eating enough breakfast before sound recording. I could probably have made more of the recording opportunities we had this morning, but it’s hard to be slow and methodical when there’s someone alongside to share the excitement with. We did record a few stretches of curlew song, but the best moment came when we met a sedge warbler and a reed bunting sitting on a fence only a few metres away. The sedge warbler, although tiny, was belting out his song with some vigour, as sedge warblers do. When you really listen to bird song - especially from master vocalists like warblers - you experience it not as noise, but rather the organised sounds of virtuoso musicians. Some warblers, like the whitethroat, can even cram in several short indistinguishable imitations of other birds in just a fraction of a second.

Before long, Sam was needed by colleagues in another part of the valley, so I got a lift back to Penmachno with plans to return later. Although we returned this evening, by then the rain had settled in. Unfortunately rain is the one thing that really stops play - I have a windshield for the dish, but raindrops are clearly audible against the plastic, and the microphone isn’t waterproof. At least there was a rainbow.

Despite the sound recording gods (The God of Sound Things) conspiring against us, I really enjoyed spending time with Sam and talking to her about curlews and conservation. Read more about the Curlew LIFE programme via their website.

Day 3.

What a day today was! Having not heard very much at dawn yesterday, I decided to sleep in and head off around noon to a different patch, this time within walking distance of Penmachno (Sam had left by this point, and I’d lost my wheels). I headed out of the village and up a steep farm track that became increasingly rough, until it melted into moorland. I’d been told there were a few pairs of curlews up there, but by about 16:00 I’d only heard one, calling briefly in the distance. I’m leaving tomorrow, so by this point I was beginning to have a word with myself - I might have to accept defeat. My goal across these trips is to record the ‘arc’ of the curlew breeding season. Up in Geltsdale I recorded the bubbling song of display flights; here in Wales I was hoping to catch the alarm calls that signal chicks, but so far I’d failed and I was running out of time. I decided to head back down the hills and return to the village. Perhaps I’d at least find someone local to chat to about curlews…

trying to find a curlew in a haystack

I got lucky. I’d not even made it back into the village when I came across two locals walking down the hill. We started talking, as you do in rural areas when there’s virtually nobody else around. It turned out that one of them, Iona, had grown up on the farm she now runs, and remembers curlews from her childhood just as vividly as I do. Although they disappeared from her farm some years ago, she still goes on runs in another local area where curlews breed. She told me that she associates their sound with “nostalgia” and “positive memories”. She also gave me their Welsh name: ‘gylfinir’. After we’d talked a bit, Iona gave me her phone number, and suggested that she and her husband might, possibly, be able to give me a lift back to Ysbyty Ifan, where Sam and I had recorded curlews yesterday. I returned to the B&B and crossed my fingers. About half an hour later I got a text to say they’d drive me there in 10 minutes or so - all was not lost! Iona said she’d come back for me after her son’s football practice, so I had about an hour and a half to record, and this time the weather was in my favour.

For a blissful hour or so, in a gentle breeze and a sea of cotton grass, curlews circled and - yes! - called out in alarm. Alarm calls mean chicks, and where there are chicks, there’s hope. Having spent the first half of the day scouring empty hills for curlews, it felt like I’d found an oasis in the desert. It was such sheer pleasure to be out there that I didn’t care that by now both of my boots had completely fallen apart. In just three hours, my trip to Wales had gone from failure to success.

Back at the B&B, the bar is open tonight for the first time in a long while…

Edit:

I found out yesterday that my old anthropology supervisor at the University of St Andrews, Peter Gow, has died. He was an Amazonianist, and a great character with plenty of stories to tell. Coincidentally, a young Brazilian anthropologist who’s just moved into the B&B with his friend (and who I’ve just shared a few drinks with in the bar) knew of him. The calls I recorded today are dedicated to Peter and his family.

Cotton Grass near Ysbyty Ifan

Follow more of my curlew adventures via my curlew highlight reel on Instagram

Thanks to Lucy Foster, Martin Clift, Julian Hughes and Sian Shakespear. Special thanks to Samantha Lee and my new friends in Penmachno, Iona and John Roberts. Thanks also to Katerina and Colin in Llanrwst and The Eagles B&B.