It was an early Christmas present for us here at the Lincolnshire reserves. Last weekend, the results were announced of the 'Golden Welly' Competition. The is an annual contest between RSPB nature reserves. The idea being to encourage wading birds there, so people can see them (and so that they might also breed) or use the reserve as a valuable refueling stop during migration. The rules are pretty simple. The counting period was March til October. The birds have to be proper waders (not storks, egrets, ibises, rails etc) and be standing on managed wetland habitat. So flying over doesn't count, neither does sitting on the beach.
So how did we do?
Well, I'm pleased to say that for the fourth year in a row, the Lincolnshire Wash reserves (ie Frampton and Freiston) scooped the top slot. Though admittedly this year we did have to share it with our good friends from Titchwell. (Such good friends, we even found a pectoral sandpiper for them, on a team visit!). Overall we found 33 different species of waders. The top of the table looked like this:
=1: Lincolnshire Wash reserves and Titchwell: 33 species
3: Minsmere: 32 species
4: South Essex: 30 species
=5: Dearne Valley, Blacktoft and Pagham Harbour: 28 species
So what was on our list? Well, here it is:
Unfortunately, we never did discover who put in a record of Pectoral Sandpiper onto the website 'Bird Track', and so couldn't get it verified. Both the Purple Sandpiper that arrived in November and Grey Phalarope in December were too late to count. The addition of those 2 does mean we had 35 species of wader in a calendar year, more than any other RSPB reserve has ever had.
Overall though, a pretty good result, I'm sure you'll agree! We're looking forward to defending the title once more in 2016.
Reedbed, freshwater scrapes, saltmarsh and wet meadow. Frampton Marsh has it all! Come and pay us a visit soon.