Ecologists, farmers and landowners have been working together in North Yorkshire on a project aiming to protect the habitats of one of the country's most threatened species.
There are 60,000 breeding curlew pairs in the UK, the third biggest breeding population in the world behind Finland and Russia. But numbers have halved in the last 30 years - due largely to an increase in predation and changes to agricultural practices - and the species is now on the UK's conservation 'red list'.
The Yorkshire Dales is one of the most important habitats in the UK for these wading birds and has been chosen as the location for a curlew tagging project.
A joint project between the British Trust for Ornithology (BTO) and the Yorkshire Dales National Park Authority - in partnership with estate managers, farmers, landholders and other local stakeholders - it involves using GPS technology to monitor the movement and breeding habits of curlews in the Dales, particularly in Wensleydale.
The birds are caught and wear the tags like a rucksack. Data is transmitted to mobile devices at regular intervals, allowing the researchers to track the movement of the birds in real time.
The Yorkshire Dales project, funded by Defra's Farming in Protected Landscapes programme, involves tracking 17 birds in different stages of the breeding season in several habitats - silage, hay meadow, grazing pasture and rough grassland/moorland.
This information can then be used to for land management - for example, how and where to cut silage or graze cattle - to minimise the impact on the birds' breeding season.
Dr Samantha Franks, senior research ecologist at the BTO, said the support of local farmers and other stakeholders had been "absolutely brilliant" and crucial to the project.
"Some of the them have come out to watch us catch the birds and see them being tagged," she said.
"Some of them haven't seen a curlew that close and the look on their faces is really amazing from our perspective.
"We've had phenomenal support from farmers and managers allowing us access to their land - they're very in tune with what the birds are doing, we couldn't have done it without them."
Now that the breeding season is over, the ecologists are examining the data to see what they can learn about the "iconic species" and if it would be helpful to modify farming methods.
Dr Franks, lead researcher on the project said although there is a large population of curlews in a global sense, she has spoken to some older Dales farmers who say the number of waders are just a fraction of what they used to be.
She is now hoping that the project can help reverse the recent trajectory of the declining population and return the breeding waders closer to what those farmers remember from "the good old days".
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