Curlew Exhibition, Keswick Museum Community Gallery

Keswick Museum is hosting a new exhibition in the Community Gallery. The exhibition, ‘Curlew Recovery - Helping Curlews Thrive in the Cocker Valley’, is open daily, 10am - 4pm, from Monday 16th March to the end of April. Entrance to the Community Gallery is free, but there is a charge for Museum exhibitions.

The exhibition features the vital conservation work of the Melbreak Curlew Recovery Project over the past two years. It includes ‘A year in the Life of a Curlew’, with audio of the curlew’s iconic call and is illustrated with photographs and displays as well as a video produced by wildlife photographers John and Rosamund Macfarlane.

Launched in early 2024 and based in the Lorton Valley, Cumbria, the Project aims to raise awareness of the plight of the curlew, which is facing extinction, and demonstrate that by working with farmers and landowners, local communities can make a positive difference to halt the decline and increase the population. Curlews are listed at the highest level of conservation concern and it is hoped that this important work will help to preserve this precious species for future generations.

Curlew greeting cards, specially designed in Cumbria by Market Place Print Studio, will be on sale, as well as curlew cards with beautiful photographic images created by John and Rosamund Macfarlane.

The Melbreak Curlew Recovery Project is entirely run by volunteers. Funded by FiPL (Farming in Protected Landscapes) it is part of the Melbreak Wildlife Group, an initiative of the Melbreak Communities.