Male Cirl Bunting (Emberiza cirlus) Photo by Paco Gómez from Castellón, Spain derivative work: Bogbumper (talk) – Cirl_bunting.jpg, CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=10654353
Dear Readers, back in the early 2000s I had a first stab at a biology degree, with Birkbeck University in central London. Part of the degree was a field course at Slapton Sands in Devon. I loved the field course, but for whatever reason I wasn’t part of the in-crowd – in the end, I hung out with a young woman, Rose, from Zimbabwe, who was determined to take her qualification and her skills back to her country. On one afternoon, the lecturer running the course asked if anyone wanted to go and look for the cirl buntings. Most of the others rolled their eyes and said they had too much work to do (plus they were recovering from the previous night’s hangover) but Rose and I were keen, and so off we went, sneaking along the edge of a hedgerow until suddenly we saw a little brown bird flittering in and out of the hawthorn, followed by a little brown bird with a striped yellow face.
“That”, said the lecturer, “Is one of the rarest birds in England”.
Cirl buntings are common enough in mainland Europe, but in England they have retreated from quite an extensive population across southern England to 118 pairs in Devon in 1989. It was clear that without support they were going to become extinct, but fortunately there was RSPB research on what was causing their precipitous decline.
Firstly, the loss of weedy winter stubbles meant that there was nothing for the birds to eat in the winter. Secondly, intensive grassland management meant that their main food, grasshoppers and crickets, were hard to come by in the summer. And thirdly the grubbing out of hedgerows meant there was nowhere for them to nest. What to do?
Armed with the specific knowledge from the research projects, the RSPB worked with local farmers and incentivised them to grow spring barley crops, which meant that there was food-rich stubble left to feed the birds through winter and into early spring. It was a success – the project started in 1993, and by 1998 the population had increased by 83%. By 2016 there were over a thousand pairs of Cirl buntings, still located in a small area around south Devon.
In order to set up a second population, some birds from the Devon population have now been translocated to the Roseland Peninsula in Cornwall, with 65 pairs now established.
This sounds like a success story, but is it?
Cirl buntings are homebodies, a bit like house sparrows – they move no more than a mile from their breeding areas to their wintering areas. They are totally dependent, as Sara Hudston says in ‘Red Sixty Seven’, on this hedgerow, this patch of stubble. They are totally dependent on farmers continuing to be supported to farm in a particular way. If the farmers revert to their previous practices, I have little doubt that the Cirl bunting will, once again, be on the verge of disappearing from England. And what a shame it would be not to hear its call, which Hudston describes sounding like ‘a sewing machine rattling down a hem’. See what you think (this recording is by Francesco Sottile, from Calabria, Italy).
Female Cirl Bunting (Photo By Paco Gómez from Castellón, Spain – Escribano soteño-HembraUploaded by snowmanradio, CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=18819254)
Holidaying at Prawle point, I think in the 1980s, we learned from a twitcher why such a crowd of them were there: an elusive cirl bunting. We rambled off in the opposite direction and there it was, obligingly on a hedge top. Lucky us.
I love it when birds do that, I swear they do it on purpose 🙂
I saw cirl buntings at Prawle Points last summer too
I saw cirl buntings at Prawle Points last summer too.
Sounds like a cirl bunting hotspot!
What a lovely looking bird. Let’s hope they continue to thrive. 🤞🤞
Cirl buntings do seem to be thriving in South Devon. I saw approx 200 in a field near Otterton ten days ago. We watched them for 20 minutes, busily feeding in the stubble. That particular farm is owned by the Clinton Devon Estates, who seem very enlightened about wildlife (they welcomed the first wild-living beavers in the UK, among other things). Each field gate has a notice explaining what is growing in that field and how it is managed, with a mention of cirl buntings.
The birds are reliably easy to see in other places along the South Devon coast too, and even inland close to Exeter. Long may they thrive here.
Yes indeed! It’s so good to have some good news for once. What’s remarkable about the cirl bunting story is that the RSPB-commissioned research found exactly what the birds needed, and local farmers were happy to do their bit to make sure that they got it. This is a story that could be repeated all over the UK if we could only get our acts together.