Happy days for red-necked phalaropes at the Mires of Funzie

This summer we had some exciting red-necked phalarope news at the Mires of Funzie. Our Shetland sites manager Kevin Kelly tells us more.

To say the last few months in Shetland have been difficult is an understatement. The impact the current strain of HPAI (Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza) is having on our seabirds has been heart-breaking to witness. But just as nature can break our hearts it can also fill them with joy. And we were over the moon to record our first confirmed breeding red-necked phalaropes at the Mires of Funzie since 2009 this summer. 

These gorgeous little wading birds are a red-listed species and, with the threat of climate change and UK range limitations putting real pressure on them, they need our continued help now more than ever. Through our previous geo-locater tracking work in Fetlar we know that they spend their winters off the coast of Peru before making their annual trip to Shetland to breed in May, before heading back to Peru in August.

Image by Chris Gomersall (rspb-images.com)

The perfect breeding grounds for red-necked phalaropes are a combination of large areas of open water for displaying, a healthy wetland with lots of plant life to provide food and shelter and clumps of grass (tussock vegetation) to nest in. Many of the sites we manage across Fetlar tick all these boxes and provide a real haven for our summer visitors. Sadly, due to previous cumulative spoil build up and limiting water control at the Mires of Funzie, the site was not meeting the needs of these rare birds.

But thanks to funding from NatureScot’s Biodiversity Challenge Fund, we carried out a major redevelopment of the Mires of Funzie. The improvement works involved removing unsuitable soil that had been left over from previous excavation work, expanding and re-opening areas of water, adding a good mix of steep and gradual declines to the edging, improving drainage which had become blocked over the years and installing a new water control system.

(Images by Kevin Kelly, show before and after development work)

By restoring the mire, along with reinstating cattle grazing to help maintain the feeding and nesting areas, we hoped to see phalaropes back breeding on the site over the next few years. But nature is full of surprises, and we were delighted to find a male incubating a nest of four eggs in July of this year.

Red-necked phalaropes are an incredibly important species, and this has been such a rewarding project to work on to help improve the outlook for these beautiful birds.

(Main image by Kevin Kelly)