....the best yet that is (see last blog)! The wader breeding season is now well and truly over at Beckingham and we are delighted to report on the best ever season for our target species - lapwing and redshank. The site is still very small and young, but this year we have smashed our previous record for lapwing productivity, with 11 pairs fledging a total of 17 young. This is a productivity of 1.55, which doesn't sound much, but when you consider that lapwings need to fledge an average of 0.6 young per year to sustain a stable population, it shows how good the site has been this year. Well done birds!
And it doesn't stop there - our first ever redshank chicks on site also fledged! Fingers crossed that the successful pair will return next year for another attempt and we can continue to build on the redshank success from 2016.
Tree sparrows too are having a good year, despite the poor start to the season, with cool and wet weather. 23 pairs are now on second broods and so far a total of 136 young have either fledged or are near fledged. Our tree sparrow monitor, Chris is confident that we will end up with well over 150 young fledged for this year - a very good total indeed! Some of the birds may well go onto third brood too, so watch this space for more tree sparrow news.
Lapwing. Chris Gomersall (rspb-images.com)
Redshank. Andy Hay (rspb-images.com)
And tree sparrow! Andy Hay (rspb-images.com)