The Ground-Nesting Bird Excuse: Uncovering the Real Cost of Landscape Destruction

One of the recurring lines we often hear in relation to land management is, “What about ground-nesting birds?” It’s a question often used to justify practices that cause devastating environmental damage—whether it's the killing of ‘predators’ like foxes, burning the hillsides, or discouraging woodland restoration. The idea is that these actions are necessary to produce optimum conditions for these species. But we have to ask ourselves: why have ground-nesting birds become the single metric of environmental success?

One of my rules in life is to try to listen to understand—not just to respond. This question has permeated conversations with land managers, farmers, naturalists, and even sporting enthusiasts. Without fail, the rationale for it is deeply intertwined with tradition—particularly grouse shooting. While many of those involved in the sport recognize that reshaping entire landscapes just to create conditions that might produce more of the one thing you aim to shoot is fundamentally flawed, ground-nesting birds offer a moral smokescreen (irony fully intended if anyone has seen the abomination that is muirburn). If we claim that it’s all “for the good of ground-nesting birds,” it feels more acceptable. We go from being bizarrely obsessive vandals to “custodians of nature.” It’s easier to own the destruction of wildlife and habitat if it’s framed as something virtuous, isn’t it?

In truth, what we’ve done is develop overwrought narratives and dissociative language to help people feel comfortable with the damage inflicted on the landscape—it’s everywhere in the land economy. It’s a way to reconcile the obsession with controlling nature and the paradoxical desire to protect it (in the form we want)—when really, it’s about the desire to kill something, whether for sport or out of an illusion of management.

But let’s pause to remember where ground-nesting birds originally thrived, long before we manipulated their habitats for our purposes. Across Europe, these species flourished in vast floodplains, open glades, and naturally occurring clearings. For example, curlews in Finland are often found nesting amongst bog pines in broken, wooded landscapes—natural mosaics that offer protection and resources. Closer to home, snipe in Rothiemurchus call from the tops of trees in dynamic landscapes shaped by wetlands and woodlands. These birds did not evolve in scorched, predator-free, monoculture moorlands but in rich, diverse environments shaped by natural forces like flooding, forest dynamics, and grazing from native herbivores.

What if we shifted our focus? Instead of manipulating the environment to create ideal conditions for the one species you want to kill, we could reduce human intervention and allow nature to take the lead. Floodplains could be restored, creating vast, biodiverse wetlands. Woodland glades and clearings—which once offered ideal habitats for these birds—could naturally reappear as forests are allowed to regenerate. These are the kinds of landscapes where ground-nesting birds once thrived, not in the artificial environments shaped by muirburn and predator control.

Imagine a landscape free from chemical inputs, where burning wasn’t used as a tool of control, and the invasive species we introduced were actively removed to allow ecosystems to self-correct. Rather than imposing our will, we could let nature find its own equilibrium—one that is responsive to climate changes, biodiversity, and natural cycles, not human timetables, sporting calendars, or fiscal years.

In such a system, we wouldn’t need to obsess over whether or not ground-nesting birds are thriving at any given moment—everything would be better as a result. Biodiversity would ebb and flow as ecosystems evolved, supporting a wider range of species and creating conditions far richer and more dynamic than any artificially maintained landscape. Ground-nesting birds, along with countless other species, could flourish in an environment where natural processes determine the health of the land, not the interventionist hand of land managers and gamekeepers. 

The language of arrogance, dominance, and destruction is literally hiding in plain sight. Our current model, driven by the need to control (which often means to kill), only serves to diminish the resilience and richness of our ecosystems—ironically resulting in far fewer of the very things the most passionate proponents for tradition want to see. Virtually every traditional keeper we meet reflects that “numbers are down,” with most concluding that they will keep doing what they’re doing—or worse, push harder.

It’s time we step back and give nature the chance to heal, to thrive, and to exist on its terms—not ours. Only then can we hope to create a truly healthy, abundant environment that serves all forms of life, not just the ones we’ve decided matter most.