Well we are nearly at the end of the breeding season - doesn't it go fast - and it looks like the final total for fledged lapwings will be 11-13. There are 8 fledged off already and another three very large young that look healthy and ready to go. This is the largest number of lapwing young ever to fledge from Beckingham Marshes and combined with us having the largest number of pairs ever attempt to breed this year, it has well and truly been the best year ever for the birds on site!
And this success has been down to a lot of hard work by a lot of people, including working to achieve higher water levels across the site and the installation of the anti-predator fence. A massive thank you to all involved in the project over the years.
News of the exact final total to follow hopefully either next week or the week after!
Our tree sparrows too have done well this year, with 25 pairs breeding, this is higher than last year and looks promising for an ever expanding colony. However, fledgling numbers will be lower than last year due to the late start to the spring and some bad weather a few weeks ago. Tree sparrows are regular third (and sometimes fourth!) brooders, however this year with the late spring, they have been restricted to just two broods, meaning numbers of young are low. We still estimate however, that just over 100 young tree sparrows will fledge from the marshes by the end of the season. Many thanks to our volunteer Chris du Feu for his tree sparrow monitoring work.
And in other news, I was delighted to see two green sandpipers on site last Wednesday on wet scrapes in the field opposite the Willow Works and the next one along. A welcome site tick for me. There are still plenty of linnets, yellow wagtails, skylarks and meadow pipits around and we were very pleased to see two fledged grey partridge young on site this week - very encouraging for a now much scarcer species.
Green sandpiper. Chris Gomersall (rspb-images.com)