The Cry of the Curlew

To see a hapless chick wandering on a road on a summer’s evening is a heart-stopping moment for the frantic parents calling overhead and for us. Having the curlew’s cry become part of the soundtrack of your life is a thing of joy, something carried deep within and drawn upon in darker times. To die without hearing the cry of the Curlew sail by on the wind is not to have lived at all.

In our ever-more urbanised lives, these are privileges few get to enjoy. We hope this website will bring the essence of the Curlew’s cry into many people’s lives. Through photography, prose, poems and others’ insights we hope to convey the continuing story of the Curlew’s vital connection to our own species’ well-being. Every image made, every word crafted comes from nature and gives back to nature.

That is why we live and what we live for.

Barbara Murray and Paco Valera

EXTINCTION

Have you heard the cry of the curlew?

I tell you –

I would rather we lost

the entire contents

of every art gallery

in the whole world

than lose

forever

the cry of the curlew

Alastair McIntosh

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