Spring has undoubtedly sprung this week with the weather to match. With it has come to the usual early spring bird migrants including a Black Redstart, an array of Chiffchaffs, a Willow Warbler and the first Swallows and Sandwich Terns of the year.
Star birds recently must be a Black Necked grebe which spent about a week on Havergate feeding in front of Gullery lagoon, this is only the 6th ever record of this species on havergate, though I have a feeling that it should be an annual winter visitor as it winters in sheltered spots along the coast and saline lagoons and not technically on the island but within the Havergate recording area was a Great crested grebe on the river, only the 13th ever record of this familiar grebe. There has also been a Peregrine and Short Eared Owl around at various times this week.
Operation Spoonbill was finally completed on Wednesday (see pictures). Unfortunately I don't have any before hand photo's. What Operation Spoonbill consisted of was trying to recreate a small part of Wadden Island on Havergate Island, in the hope that this might entice a pair or two to breed on Havergate.
For those unfamiliar with the status of Spoonbills in Europe . The Wadden Islands are the name of the area in Holland that a majority of the dutch Spoonbills breed. Over 900 pairs of Spoonbill call these islands home. The islands Spoonbills colonies are small to medium size grassy and marshy islets surrounded by ditches and dykes with minimal predators and low levels of disturbance.
So what have we done to encourage them, this winter and Spring we have patched up the decoy Spoonbills so they look almost as good as new. We managed to get some photo's from the Dutch colonies and from this we have chosen where to place the decoy spoonbills carefully. We have also transplanted some bushes from our nearby Hollesley marshes reserve to give the area a more Wadden island feel and finally we have replicated Spoonbill nests as closely as possible (they tend to be large sprawling affairs, not to dissimilar to Cormorant nests).
Some of characteristics of the Wadden Islands we already have in place, small grassy islets surrounded by saline water, we have also had the sluice gates open throughout spring to try and encourage as many shrimps and small fish into the lagoons as possible (Spoonbills peferred food). Though we need to be careful with this as too much water places food out of the reach of even a Spoonbills bill. We also have a large colony of co- breeders in this gulls and relatively low levels of mammalian predation.
It is perhaps unfair to expect miracles from the management this spring but least it is something to build on. One of the biggest problems when managing for Spoonbills is that there is no set program, no booklet, no guide, this makes managing for and trying to attract Spoonbills the ecological equivalent of pin the tail on the donkey.
However, encouragement can be drawn from the fact that all the new colonies currently spreading throughout Holland and Germany where from sites with large summering flocks. As has been well established, for the last 10 years or so, Havergate has played host to a large flock of summering Spoonbills. Therefore maybe the best management technique we can deploy is patience.