Hello,
Welcome to this week’s installment from the North West Norfolk reserve team.
Beach nesting bird cordons
From mid-February ringed plovers arrive back home to raise their next generation, which includes the beaches of Snettisham and Titchwell. For the next 6- 8 weeks they will spend their time re-establishing their territory and displaying to their partner. From mid-April ringed plovers will start to lay their first eggs of the season.
As they have evolved to camouflage their eggs to blend in with the beach that they nest on, ringed plover nests are prone to disturbance and trampling by people. Therefore, to give them the best chance of establishing territories and choosing safe places to nest the reserve team this week installed several rope cordons on the beaches at Titchwell and Snettisham. These cordons are installed in the main areas where ringed plovers return to every year to nest. As the breeding season progresses and other birds decide to nest in other areas, we will be out installing rope cordons around their nests too.
One of the challenges on the Norfolk coast are the high tides which on occasions can cover much of the beach damaging the cordon. No sooner had we installed the Titchwell cordon we were back out a couple of days later to carry out repairs.
When you are next on our beaches and see the cordons do give them space and allow the birds to raise their family in peace.
Fencing Repairs
We also spent a morning at one of our confidential nature reserves to carry out some more fencing repairs to protect this site from trespassing. Sadly, we also had to retrieve several bags of rubbish from what appeared to be leftovers from a BBQ.
Bird Surveys
This week was also the monthly WeBS (Wetland Bird survey) count which we completed across both reserves. Over at Snettisham 24,000 Knot were counted roosting on the beach whilst at Titchwell we continued to have a good count of Common Pochard.
We have also been out listening to the bittern that is booming across the reserve, we will be out regularly from now on to keep track of what is going on. Fingers crossed. Whilst listening for bitterns we can observe the marsh harriers which are busy nest building within the reed bed.
Odd jobs
To finish this week’s update, we have also been pottering about Titchwell completely various odd jobs, from tweaking water levels, clearing blocked sluices, repainting the speed humps and repairing the kickboards along the boardwalk.
That is it for this week. Take care
Lizzie
NW Norfolk Reserves Warden