It's our AGM tomorrow and to mark the occasion I wanted to share some good news.
Last month, I hinted that breeding waders on our nature reserves might have had a better season. The results from across our network of nature reserves are now in and I am delighted to be able to report that some species - especially lapwing and black-tailed godwit - have had a good year. Other species - like snipe and redshank - fared about as well as last year.
What this tells me is that the effort we have put in to getting the habitat right and taking appropriate action to control predators (either through fencing and lethal control) is paying off but there is still a lot of hard graft to ensure a sustainable future for these species*.
The volatility of our weather is not making management for waders any easier, but the dedication and expertise of our reserve teams, ecologists, advisors and scientists is making a huge difference to these species on our sites. Yet, with climate change expected to increase the frequency of extreme weather events, we need to do even more to recover populations so they are able to deal with shocks.
As one of our scientists, Dr Jennifer Smart, explained earlier in the year, our vision is for waders to be common in our landscapes in the future. This simple ambition is a theme I shall be exploring further in my AGM talk on Saturday. For those of you that are planning to come, I look forward to seeing you there. For those of you that are not, why not? Either way, I shall offer some reflections about the AGM on Monday.
Below provides a snapshot of this year's UK the breeding wader story. I hope this brings autumnal cheer...
England
In the fens and in the south-east, there is good news to report. At the Nene Washes, for example, following disastrous flooding last summer, 35 black-tailed godwits fledged. At the Ouse Washes, over 100 pairs of lapwing, redshank and snipe nested on wet grassland.
In Kent and Essex there was a similar story. At our North Kent reserves there were 88 pairs of lapwings - the highest for 7 years - and at Rainham Marshes there were 27 pairs – the highest for 5 years. On these reserves there was the highest productivity (number of chicks fledged per pair) ever recorded. There is general consensus that we should be aiming to get above the magic productivity figure of 0.7 regarded as being required to maintain a stable population. 5 out of our 6 Kent reserves exceeded this target.
Northern Ireland
Here we are beginning to see the impact of the Halting Environmental Loss Project (HELP) which was launched in March 2011. The numbers of pairs of curlew, lapwing, redshank and snipe on the HELP project area (Loughs Erne, Foyle, and Beg areas and in the Glenwherry hills in Northern Ireland) have gone up each year since 2011. The total number of pairs of these birds was 405 in 2011 and in 2013 was an amazing 644.
Wales
While results on our reserves are good, elsehwere, especially in the uplands, the future of breeding waders looks less rosy. Collectively RSPB reserves are home to almost 20% of the Welsh breeding population of lapwings with Ynys Hir on the Dyfi Estuary in mid Wales, Anglesey wetlands, Conwy and as far south as Ramsey Island all supporting breeding pairs. The safe breeding habitat provided has seen good productivity with an average of 1.01 (on those sites assessed), Working with landowners and partners on Mynydd Hiraethog, breeding curlews have also benefitted.
Scotland
This year we are able to celebrate the fantastic contribution of our Inner Hebridean island reserves to wader successes. There were over 200 pairs of lapwing and over 100 pairs of redshank at Loch Gruinart on Islay contributing to over 500 pairs of waders of 8 species on this one reserve. 80 pairs of lapwing on Oronsay, over 300 pairs of lapwing alone on The Reef, Tiree plus another 400-odd pairs of 5 other species. On the farmland areas of our Coll Reserve, we have another 140 pairs of waders including lapwing, redshank and snipe. Just these four reserves contribute around 1600 pairs of waders to our reserve totals!
*As regular readers of this blog will remember, evidence has shown that predators can cause a problem for some ground-nesting birds. When we have evidence of a problem, that the predator is in a healthy conservation status, that action is likely to be effective we will undertake predator control but only adopt lethal means as a last resort.
Martin,
Lovely report. Glad to read you are reporting breeding success too. On one farm last year we watched 13 lapwing pairs, which between them nested 27 times, that failed to hatch any chicks at all. If we are going to halt local extinctions I feel we need to move on from just reporting population counts and start focusing on solutions that achieve greater breeding success. I believe our conservation policies need to focus on breeding success rather than just habitat improvement.
Keep up the hard work,
Andrew
For me, the fundamental questions on predator control are (1) is it the first or the last resort ? and (2) will it work ? I'm afraid there remains an ignorant 'if its doing harm killing it must be good' attitude that survives in the countryside and I think the answer is in education - the level of ecological knowledge amongst the majority of people, very much including many countrymen who should know better from their personal observations is woeful and some of our politicians can be especially embarrassing as they too often seem to feel they have a right to know best.
But the real problem is surely lack of habitat - what has happened to waders in lowland England in my lifetime is absolutely shocking and one of the clearest indicators of how we have squeezed the rougher, wilder bits out of our farmed countryside. When the new BTO atlas comes out have a look at the yawning gaps around some of the waders on RSPB reserves martin is rightly celebrating. Give them space and the predator problems will be much less urgent.
I agree with Blackgull's point - all other things being equal, one would expect waders and other species to do well on nature reserves – it is those elsewhere we should be most concerned about. That is what their purpose is for is it not? Here is Natural England's view on the subject - “NNRs were initially established to protect sensitive features and to provide ‘outdoor laboratories’ for research. Their purpose has widened since those early days. As well as managing some of our most pristine habitats, our rarest species and our most significant geology, most Reserves now offer great opportunities to the public as well as schools and specialist audiences to experience England’s natural heritage”.
Managing is the key word there in my opinion, and it sounds as though that has been successfully achieved for waders on rspb reserves this year, so well done. However, waders continue to suffer declining fortunes in many areas not afforded such protection. Not every land manager, farmer or reserve owner can afford the luxury of miles of electric fencing to keep mammalian predators at bay, so lethal predator control is often the only option. And for avian predators, a combination of habitat modification and both lethal and non-lethal predator control methods is clearly necessary. I endorse wholeheartedly, Blackgull’s call for closer cooperation between the rspb, BASC and other countryside conservation bodies – time to pool knowledge, expertise and understanding for the greater good.
Meanwhile, one of my favourite waders is the dotterel, (the Gaelic ‘fool-of-the-moss’), so it is sad to read of its steady decline over the last 15 years or so http://tinyurl.com/lucadyd and I am looking forward to seeing Mark Eaton’s forthcoming paper on the issue – when is it due to be published? One of my observations from traditional dotterel strongholds that I visited this year was surprise in finding family parties of ravens frequenting and systematically working 2 of the 3 upland areas visited. Correspondence with another montane bird expert revealed that ravens were now an almost permanent presence on one of the eastern Grampian areas in question during May-July. Ravens are of course significant predators of eggs and chicks. I expect that there are many other upland wader populations in the same boat elsewhere.
Finally, how did the beleaguered lapwings at Elmley reserve fare this year?
Although I understand rspb policy of culling predators and actually I agree with it,I still find it difficult to understand the fact that rspb seem so against the Government trying to solve the BTB problem.For sure Badgers are in numbers that is healthy while probably not healthy in themselves.
Each one of the 300,000 think that is estimate that is culled with BTB is heartache for the owner and if that was 300,000 pet dogs reaction would be different.
To me the rspb is saying one law for us and a very different one for farmers,How strange,if anyone should understand the need to cull if it will solve the problem the rspb should.
Perhaps the worst aspect of shooting Badgers is in my opinion if there was not such antagonism towards culling Badgers then the Government would probably have gone for the option of gassing setts on farms where BTB was confirmed which is the obvious thing to do surely.
I do agree the present pilot culls are not ideal as they are culling completely random animals.
Good news indeed; though we are really more concerned about waders across the wider countryside, not just the minority area of RSPB reserves.
We cannot afford to pussyfoot around predators on a crowded island - habitat work cuts both ways.
This science research suggests removing trees from the uplands to prevent providing cover to curlew predators;
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/.../abstract
And this research suggests better grassland habitat for lapwings in the uplands; onlinelibrary.wiley.com/.../abstract
Both mention predator control - BASC are doing good work on this and the RSPB must join with them to save the birds - even if the methods offend the members.
Rob Yorke @blackgull