After the habitat improvements have taken place, the hope is that birds will find them and stay and breed on site. Therefore, we have to give them the best chance of survival.
The Crook of Baldoon was specifically purchased to create a productive wet grassland/saltmarsh habitat complex which is attractive to breeding waders. Lowland breeding waders have suffered significant declines in populations over the last 50 years. Lapwings have declined by 59% (1967 -2020) and Redshank 49% (1995 to 2020) and therefore have become a priority for the RSPB. There are several reasons for these declines include amongst others habitat loss, changing agricultural practices and predation.
Materials moved on site
With habitat improvements, an increased density of wader nests on reserves have signalled that habitat work is working. However, by attracting more breeding pairs to reserves the likelihood of attracting their associated predators is increasing as they discover an easy food source. Over the last 10 years predator control fences have become an increasingly common site in the countryside as a proven effective way to protect nests from mammalian predation from foxes and badgers in particular. This has led to an increase in productivity on reserves so sustaining the local population of waders and in many causes increasing the population so they can repopulate areas outside the reserves.
Construction begins
The Crook of Baldoon is well known for having a healthy population of badgers, as well as numbers of foxes, which range across the reserve. The use of camera traps has shown both badgers and foxes predating wader nests. For example, last year we had a minimum of 25 breeding pairs of waders and a small black headed gull colony (also a declining species). Unfortunately, the gull colony was predated by what we suspect was a badger (this is the second year in a row this has happened) and in 2022 there was a significant downturn in wader productivity particularly lapwing.
To ensure that this downturn in wader productivity was halted quickly, when funding through SMEEF (Scottish Marine Environmental Enhancement Fund) came available specifically for this type of project, we were able to construct a 2m predator control fence around our main wader breeding areas so to establish an area on the reserve where successful wader nests would help the recovery of the populations around the rest of the reserve. This work is being carried out in combination with significant habitat works over the winter. We are obviously conscience of the visual impacts of the fence but have weighed up this with positive results we hope for not just with wader numbers but with all the ground nesting species that use this area including the gulls, ducks (shoveler and teal bred in 2022) skylark, reed buntings and meadow pipit. The design of the fence which will have wire extending out at the base to reduce the opportunity for animals to dig under, has been used successfully on other reserves (we have this system on our Mersehead reserve for example).
Watch this space for the final article and hopefully breeding lapwings
The Warden, RSPB Crook of Baldoon