Considering how worked up people seem to get about white-tailed eagles I thought I ought to come clean about some of our other plans for reintroductions this year. 

We are reintroducing field crickets to areas of re-created heathland at the RSPB nature reserves at Farnham Heath, Surrey and Pulborough Brooks, West Sussex in April.  Field cricket populations have declined severely due to habitat loss and were at their lowest point in the late 1980s after they were reduced to a single surviving colony of just 100 individuals in Sussex. We are working with Natural England and partners to help increase the cricket’s range and make it more robust to changes in the future, such as climate change.

In the summer we, the Bumblebee Conservation Trust, Natural England and Hymettus will be reintroducing the short haired bumblebee to our nature reserve at Dungeness, Kent – near to the site of the UK’s last recorded population in 1988. The short haired bumblebee was once widespread in the south of England but has disappeared as a result of changes in farming methods. However, populations taken to New Zealand by British settlers a century ago have thrived – and now conservationists will be bringing some back to help repopulate their homeland.

In Scotland the RSPB and Scottish Natural Heritage will be laying the groundwork for a planned reintroduction of the threatened pine hoverfly to the RSPB’s Abernethy nature reserve in 2011 . One of Britain’s most endangered insects, the pine hoverfly only breeds in the hollows of tree stumps created by fungi. In the past dead tree stumps were removed from the ground leading to a crash in the populations of the insect.

Also in Scotland this year, the RSPB and Butterfly Conservation will establish a captive breeding programme in the Spey Valley in an attempt to create a sustainable population of dark bordered beauty moths. If this is successful the moths will be released next year. The dark bordered beauty moth, which lives in aspen woodland and heathland, currently only exists in two colonies in Scotland and one in northern England.

We have recorded over 13,000 species of plant and animal on our 200+ RSPB nature reserves - only c3% of the species are birds.  These really are nature reserves and just like a few birds need a hand in finding the right places to settle, so do some of our invertebrate species. 

And it's great to share experience, and costs!, with a range of other partner organisations.  Working collaboratively is often good fun!

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