Facebook X-twitter Youtube Instagram
17-years-badge

Gamekeepers save stone curlews and turtle doves

Tony Lowry is a gamekeeper in Hampshire. His shoot gets the stone curlew as a summer visitor. It’s also a working arable farm. That’s bad news for the birds, which are ground-nesters. In summer, part of Tony’s job looking after wildlife on his ground is to go out and save stone curlew chicks from the farm machinery. “If we don’t protect them they will die out in this country,” he says. “It’s not just the stone curlews, it’s everything else here. It’s a pretty special place, with a huge variety of wildlife.”

He’s not the only one saving endangered birds. Graham Denny in Suffolk is managing his shoot so it provides ideal habitat for turtle doves, another summer visitor that has suffered in recent years from shrinking habitat and predation by jays and magpies. “We provide the nesting habitat they need, feed them, look after them and protect them from nest predation by taking out some of the grey squirrels and magpies,” explains Graham, who remembers feeding the birds with his grandfather as a small boy growing up on the farm.

And on the Continent, Dutch shooter Igor Timmermans is using drones with thermal cameras to find and spot roe kids that are in danger of being ground up by foraging machines cutting grass. Igor explains: “We put the fawns in boxes and place them aside. As soon as the farmer is ready we let the fawns loose and in 100 per cent of the cases the doe calls for them and they are reunited.” He reckons he saves 10-15 young deer this way every year.
More on gamekeeping here::

Ground Cry

8 July 2026

Galloway farmer Jamie Blackett is leading a new campaign to save Britain’s groundnesting birds. Ground Cry aims to help ground nesting birds recover through practical

Read More »

Bitting pheasant chicks

24 June 2026

Part-time gamekeeper Kevin Copeland’s pheasant chicks are two weeks old, and it is time to fit them with bits – plastic U-shapes that prevent the

Read More »

Hatching pheasant chicks

27 May 2026

For part-time gamekeeper Kevin Copeland it’s the moment of truth. The chicks are hatching and need to be moved quickly into suitable accommodation – he

Read More »

Feel free to share this story with the these buttons

FSC-Logo-White

Was that story useful?
Please support our work. Fieldsports Nation is the collective name for members of the countrysports community who have banded together to support our work promoting hunting, shooting and fishing.
We make an impact by funding a movement that informs the public and government policies.
Please click here.

Latest posts

Login

Lost your password?

Free weekly newsletter