The Group’s area is divided up into 20 survey squares, each of 2×2 kilometre squares. Members made up to three survey visits to survey squares, around 1st April, 1st May and mid-June, to record Curlew and Lapwing, and Kestrel, Cuckoo and Red Kite if possible.
Twelve members covered 9 out of 20 tetrads and put in over 55 hours of survey effort. This was much less coverage than in previous years, and more helpers are needed for the 2026 survey, please.
Maps showing the results , with a commentary, can be found by clicking on the links
Clee Hill Curlew Results 2025
Clee Hill Lapwing Results 2025
Kestrel Results 2025
Clee Hill Cuckoo Results 2025
There was another Curlew territory in the added area to the north-west, near Hoptongate.
Red Kites bred for the first time in 130 years in Shropshire in 2005, near Knighton. By 2025 they have spread right across the county and out the other side, to the east. Here, on the survey, least 8 birds were seen, in 4 different squares, and the Raptor Group found two nests in the Clee Hill area, and another just outside it. No map is published, as Kite nests are confidential.
Clee Hill is the County hotspot for Kestrels, and the Group’s Kestrel results help inform the Shropshire Kestrel Project, which has erected 8 nest boxes in the Clee Hill CWG area. All were checked in 2025, and three were occupied, all successfully, and 13 chicks were ringed and fledged. Another box, just outside the CWG area was also successful, and 5 chicks were ringed and fledged.
The survey has been carried out annually since 2012. In that time the Curlew population has declined considerably. This is typical of results across Shropshire.
Ours is one of 10 CWGs helping monitor the County Curlew population. A population estimate of 160 pairs in 2010 was published in The Birds of Shropshire (Liverpool University Press 2019. The population fell below 100 pairs in 2024, and a projection of the population estimates since 2010 here forecasts that the Curlew population will halve in 11 years, and disappear altogether (become locally extinct), in 22 years, in the year 2047.Curlews in Shropshire Decline Chart to 2047
Thanks to Chris Bargman, Alan Barrell, Sue Burbidge, Barbara Daniels, Eric Davies, Eric Evans, Jon Lingard, David & Ginny Seckerson, Margaret Shaw and Suzanne Thomas for carrying out the survey