Give our avian wildlife a wide berth says RSPB
We all need room to breathe and it turns out that our feathered friends are no exception- especially when it comes to breeding.
Spring is upon us and as Mother Nature weaves fresh colours into the landscape, renewal is in the air.
With the breeding season getting underway, birds and other wildlife prepare nests and raise their young on nature reserves; in gardens and green spaces; and in the wider countryside.
And supporting them to thrive is simpler than we may realise.
To help give birds the best chance this spring, we should give nest sites a wide berth, according to the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB).
The charity, which manages almost 159,000 hectares of land across the UK, says that disturbing nesting birds uses up the precious energy reserves of parent birds and can even cause them to abandon their young, with some species not then breeding again until the following year.
The success of this approach appears to be borne out by the RSPB’s own experience.
A new report into how wildlife fared on the charity’s nature reserves last year found that a range of species have increased rates of breeding success when given safe spaces to nest and raise their young.
Covering all 222 RSPB nature reserves throughout the UK, the report reveals the ups and downs of the 2021 bird breeding season, as well as other wildlife, and highlights the importance of both nature reserves and targeted conservation work across a range of habitats in order to support individual species.
“Looking back on how
wildlife has fared on our nature reserves in 2021 has been a fantastic insight into what can be achieved when ambitious conservation action is combined with the phenomenal team effort
of our staff and volunteers in managing, monitoring and surveying wildlife on RSPB reserves,” said Katie-Jo Luxton, the RSPB’s conservation director. Thanks to the dedicated spaces that nature reserves provide, wading birds such as lapwings and redshanks fared well at a number of RSPB reserves last year. Bucking declining trends nationally, the highest ever number of both lapwing and redshank were found in the Greater Thames area at RSPB Rainham Marshes and RSPB Wallasea Island in 2021. Both RSPB Loch Gruinart in Scotland and RSPB Burton Mere Wetlands in Cumbria also celebrated the highest ever numbers of breeding redshank, with the latter nature reserve having one of the highest densities of breeding waders in the UK last year.
Terns also nest at ground level and are often found on beaches and high tide lines.