Nicholas Soames

As millions of people know, one of the great pleasures of walking in areas of the uplands managed for grouse is to see and hear large numbers of curlew, lapwing and golden plover - all ground-nesting birds largely absent or in rapidly declining numbers elsewhere.

British Politician

Curlews are shorebirds, so you'll often hear or read about them in coastal contexts.

Bird Type

The curlew uses its long curved beak to probe the sand for food, which can be worms or small crabs.

Beak Function

Curlews are known for their loud, melancholic call, which is often referenced in poetry and literature.

Distinctive Sound

 and then from then on, it's passenger pigeons all the way, maybe for the next six million years. You can do the same thing, as the costs come down, for the Carolina parakeet, for the great auk, for the heath hen, for the ivory-billed woodpecker, for the Eskimo curlew, for the Caribbean monk seal,