I have been with the RSPB at RM for a little over ten years now and have been birding the site since the min-1980s. It has been my privilage to watch how the RSPB have managed, since July 2000, to tinker and tweak this vital green lung for the urban fringe from an unfavourable neglected landscpe back into a semblence of its Medieaval glory.
It has taken a great deal of effort (and some money) to do it but this year it actually feels like we have made a huge step into making all the hard work pay off.
Despite the seemingly dismal spring we have, in late June, a wonderful grazing marsh; lush but no overgrown; wet but not flooded and full on birds.
As already blogged Lapwing and Redshank are having a great year inside of the Fox Fence and two new (and probably last) broods of Lapwing were discovered today. At one stage last week a Carrion Crow flew through the marsh. It was not even very low and yet within a few hundred yards it had Lapwings on it tail.
As it continued, it slowly picked up more and more until 21 adult Lapwings and four Redshanks were on it and even forced it to the ground where another ten minutes of sustained bomdardment ensued before it could make good its escape.
The Fox Fence has quite literally 'Given Nature a Home' and the tight community of birds and other wildlife within it are determined to keep it safe.
Redshank Warden watching out...
... and seeing off an intruder (Russ Sherriff)
25-6-13