Pennines delight as drone survey offers hope for one of UK’s rarest birds

Conservationists find dunlin chicks thriving in boggy habitat created in collaboration with landowners Deep in the Cumbrian Pennines, walkers might be lucky enough to spot small birds with spindly legs, long beaks and bodies like feathered balls hopping through the peat bogs. These are endangered dunlins – at risk in England because their favoured soggy landscapes are drained and burned for farming and grouse shooting.