So the spring has crept up on us and is now in full swing! Blackcaps and Chiffchaffs singing everywhere you go, bluebells are up in the woodland and even the first butterflies of the year are enjoying the sun (plenty of Orange Tips around the reserve).
Bluebell carpet (A.Grubb)
As you might expect, when the birds start to get down on nests, our jobs shift from a more practical management focus, to more of a surveying role; counting breeding pairs of birds and monitoring their success in the number of chicks they successfully raise. Last week we did our first full breeding wader count for the reserve. We try to cover as much of the wet grassland areas as possible and look for breeding pairs, displaying or actual nests. It is pretty time consuming, as we have to take care in scanning across the grassland so we don’t miss anything – quite often, all you can see is a tiny head and crest of a lapwing (and you have to avoid counting clumps of mud that look like lapwings
A warden's view of the wet grassland (A.Grubb)
The map below is an example survey map we will use and you can see how we mark on pairs/nests of Lapwing and Redshank. For the first visit, the results look really promising. At least 80 pairs of Lapwing and 59 nests.
Survey map of wet grassland with pairs or nests plotted
I actually made another visit, early this week, and that number has already gone up. These numbers are only for a small part of the reserve, so we would expect a few more too – though this is by far the most productive area due to the predator exclusion fence around the area. Over the years foxes and badgers were proven to be a limiting major factor in our waders’ success, however, since that point, our lapwing numbers have steadily increased inside the fence, as have Avocet numbers.
This graph shows data for breeding pairs of waders on the fenced area of the reserve - known affectionately to the reserve team as "Inner Marsh Farm 2". The predator exclusion fence was only put up in 2012. Since then you can see the fantastic increase in pairs – it really is working! It is now imperative that we maintain this predator exclusion fence throughout the breeding season so those pesky badgers and foxes can’t get to our precious lapwing, redshank and avocets! Avocets are building up in number now too, this year’s peak count stands at 121, but still could get higher! If they all stay to breed, we’re looking like record numbers for the reserve.
Another family of birds we have been surveying this week are our herons. We call them “our” herons; they actually nest just off the reserve, but seeing as they pretty much all feed on the reserve, their presence owes a lot to our ongoing efforts! Last year numbers in the heronry were 15 grey heron nests and 69 little egret. This week, I only managed to count 9 heron nests. I will however be doing a couple more visits to count as the egrets nest slightly later than herons so fingers crossed for a few more nests. Roost counts are looking promising with over 130 little egrets coming in to roost each night.
We'll continue to post updates throughout the breeding season, but in the meantime why not visit Burton Mere Wetlands and see it all happening?