The stone curlew is one of the UK's most unusual breeding birds — a nocturnal wader of open chalk grassland and arable fields, with large yellow eyes and eerie wailing calls. Its welfare depends on bare or very lightly vegetated ground.
Stone curlew welfare requires management across arable and grassland farmland — a genuine farmer-conservation partnership challenge. Nests on bare chalk or disturbed arable are vulnerable to agricultural machinery. RSPB's stone curlew conservation programme involves GPS-tagged birds, nest monitoring and farmer payment for leaving buffer zones around nests during cultivation. Farmers who participate receive payments and support, and the partnership has produced stable breeding numbers in a species that would otherwise have continued declining. Disturbance from walkers and recreational users at known breeding sites causes nest abandonment. The RSPB's model of worked, paid conservation on farmland is the definitive welfare intervention for this species.