The Bush Stone-curlew, or Bush Thick-knee, is a large, slim, mainly nocturnal, ground-dwelling bird. They have a varied diet, but prefer to feed on insects, molluscs, small lizards, seeds and ...

The bush stone-curlew, synonymous for its eerie ‘werloo’ cry, is hard to spot in its natural habitat and loves the camouflage of tree debris.

At the moment it’s standing but we have to give it 72 hours to monitor the bird.” The bush stone-curlew was found strung up on a fence at the Kuranda Transfer Station at Koah. Picture: Tes Byrne ...

Once found widely throughout England, from Dorset to Yorkshire, Stone-curlew numbers declined through the 19th and early 20th century with 1,000 to 2,000 pairs remaining by the 1930s.

Stone-curlews nest on the ground and in the Brecks area covered by the Natural England/RSPB stone-curlew project, field staff last year found 219 nests from 150 pairs of stone-curlews.

Rapley said a bush stone-curlew named Plank was found to have flown 600km from Canberra to the NSW Hunter Valley in 2021, where bush stone-curlews are considered endangered.

Decades after the brown stone-curlew went extinct on Phillip Island, scientists reintroduce the species and hope the eradication of foxes will enable the flock to grow in the wild again.