A guest blog by Andrew Gouldstone our Site Manager...
Rainham Marshes has had a busy year so far; with a visit from the former Prime Minister David Cameron; a rally to support action against the illegal persecution of hen harriers; investment in our infrastructure including a new 2.5 mile long fence to protect wildlife; and the arrival of some man-made boulders, which magically challenge young and old to conquer the irresistible three metre tall peaks.
Quietly in the background throughout, our staff and volunteers have been working hard to improve the reserve for some of our most important wetland bird species, which for Rainham means lapwing and redshank. These breeding waders had been declining year-on-year over a long period. Between 1995 and 2012 lapwing declined by 42% in the UK and redshank underwent a similar decline, dropping 44% in the same period.
We are delighted to report we have seen the fourth successive year of population growth for both species at Rainham. I’ve already mentioned the investment in a new fence. It’s designed to protect these ground nesting birds from predators and our evidence suggests it’s highly effective. Numbers of lapwing pairs inside the fence on Aveley Marsh this year, are at an all time record for the reserve:
Lapwing 56
Redshank 54
Across the whole reserve this year, we had 68 pairs of Lapwing and 60 pairs of Redshank.
Lapwing given a Grey Heron what for! - Magnus Andersson
Adult Lapwing - beautiful iridescence - Alan Reynolds
Displaying Lapwing - Bill Crooks
In 2015, these figures were Lapwing 61 and Redshank 48, with lapwing productivity of 1.08
And in 2014, the figures were 38 and 31, and 1.55 respectively.
Lapwing productivity is the number of successfully fledged chicks that each pair of birds produce, and the figures of 1.08 and 1.55 mentioned above are well over the required threshold of 0.7 required for a healthy population. Sadly we haven’t been able to fully record productivity this year. Vegetation has grown prolifically on the marshes this year, partly due to slightly later turnout of cattle, but mostly we suspect due to the warm and wet weather. This has meant seeing and counting chicks progressively became very difficult, especially at the time when fledging would have been occurring.
A well grown Lapwing chick from this year - Tom Bell
There are several things that we can point to however to give us an indication that it was a good season for productivity. Hatching success (66% from 21 nests where outcome known) was good, large numbers of broods were seen early season, and adult defensive behaviour remained strong even when we couldn’t see chicks on the ground.
Redshank - an adult perched on our fence keeping an eye on his young feeding below - Magnus Anderson
Redshank watching us from a path side bush.... the Warden of the Marshes - John Humble
Every year, a huge amount of time and effort is spent managing the predator fence – routinely checking nearly 4km of fence, diagnosing problems when the fence stops working, keeping the vegetation cut back – its no small task. Through monitoring of trail cameras and use of thermal imaging equipment, we have no evidence to suggest that foxes got into the fenced area again in 2016, so a good result, and this also gives us confidence that it has been a good year for productivity.
A cute young Redshank - Alasdair Wilcock
Positive habitat management and a new predator fence being installed on Wennington Marsh, means we are confident that breeding wader numbers will continue to grow on the reserve.
The increase in both lapwing and redshank is an important national achievement, one to make some noise about. The UK is losing much of its wildlife yet here we’ve been able to reverse trends on a very urban site on the eastern edge of London. You can see Canary Wharf and the spiky towers of the city from our Purfleet visitor centre cafe. Upstream from us, the waters of the Thames flow past the Palace of Westminster, where ministers responsible for the protection and enhancement of the UK’s landscape sit. We’d love to see them visit Rainham, perhaps scale our boulders or try our bike hire scheme and learn how they can do more to encourage others to better support wildlife.
Andrew Gouldstone - RSPB Rainham Marshes Site Manager