Migration Watch 2003

Up until last year, the only way to get involved in migration studies was to go to the coast or to train as a bird ringer. Now, anyone with access to the Internet can contribute to our understanding of bird migration, just by reporting the birds in the local neighbourhood. The Migration Watch website www.bto.org/migwatch opens on 16th February, although only the luckiest of birdwatchers will have anything to report that early. Once open there will be daily bulletins of new arrivals, based on records received from volunteer observers in the previous 24 hours. The best way to become involved is to choose a walk that you do on a regular basis ˜ on the way to work or while walking the dog, for instance ˜ and to make a note of the birds that you see. Daily, weekly or just casual records can then be entered onto a specially designed web page. The hope is that volunteers will keep watching through to June until all the summer migrants have arrived.

Further information can be obtained from Dawn Balmer at dawn.balmer@bto.org.

Operation Godwit

The operation Godwit team are currently running a colour-ringing scheme on Icelandic Black-tailed Godwits. The main aim of this scheme is to find out if timing and extent of spring moult predict timing of migration and breeding success in the Icelandic Black-tailed Godwit. So here is where they need your help!

If you see a colour-ringed Black-tailed Godwit this spring please take a note of the ring combinations and moult score (moult score is as follows:

1 = 100% winter plumage, 2 = trace of summer plumage, 3 = 25% summer plumage,

4 = 50% summer plumage, 5 = 75% summer plumage, 6 = trace of winter plumage,

7 = 100% summer plumage).

All records should be sent to Peter M. Potts, Farlington Ringing Group, Solent Court Cottage, Chilling Lane, Warsash, Southampton, Hampshire SO31 9HF (or email: ppotts@compuserve.com) .

For more information visit (http://www.uea.ac.uk/~b072834/) or contact Tristan Reid on 016973 45667 (email Tristan@solwaybirder.org.uk).

Special Project for Wetting up Grassland for Redshank and Yellow Wagtail

An exciting new ‘Special Project’ was launched in 2002 as part of the Countryside Stewardship Scheme.

The Countryside Stewardship Scheme (CSS) forms part of the England Rural Development Programme (ERDP) and generally operates throughout England outside Environmentally Sensitive Areas or ESAs ˜ although see below (in Cumbria the ESA areas are the Lake District and the Pennine Dales). The scheme is voluntary and enables farmers and land managers to enter into a ten-year contract with DEFRA to receive annual payments to manage land in a conservation-minded way, and capital payments for items such as stock fencing and hedge restoration.

The ‘Special Project’ has been specially designed for Cumbria. It provides annual payments of £360/hectare/year to allow fields to be re-wetted by controlling outflow from ditches and drains. The aim of the project is to recreate wet grassland habitat on improved permanent grassland fields to benefit breeding Redshank and Yellow Wagtail ˜ chosen because they have declined sharply in numbers over the last 30 years in Cumbria. As well as raising the water table/water levels in ditches to provide shallow pools for feeding, stocking levels are kept low enough to avoid nest trampling and cattle-grazing is encouraged so that a tussocky, varied sward establishes.

To be eligible, farmers have to have Redshank and/or Yellow Wagtail within two kilometres of their farm. ‘Hotspots’ for these birds in Cumbria include the Duddon and Kent Estuary, Upper Eden and the Solway Coast. Their farm must lie in one of four target areas (Morecambe Bay Limestones, West Cumbria Coastal Plain, Eden Valley, Solway Basin) and the land to be entered must be improved permanent pasture which was formerly wet grassland. In February 2003, it was confirmed that the project could be extended into eligible areas of the Lake District ESA, for example the Lyth Valley.

The Special Project was developed by the Rural Development Service (RDS) in Penrith (RDS is part of DEFRA). In developing the project, it was essential that accurate bird data was available so that the Project could be specifically targeted at areas where the birds were either already present or would move to from the surrounding area. RDS are indebted to the Cumbria Bird Club who supplied this data (through the breeding bird atlas), without which the Special Project would not have been approved.

RDS set up a project group to assist in assessing Special Project applications. Members of the Project Group include the RSPB, The Environment Agency and English Nature. The Project is seen very much as a partnership where the relevant organisations can pool information and experience; the practicalities of wetting-up grassland are never straightforward!

In 2002, 30 hectares of land was brought into the Special Project near St Bees in west Cumbria. RDS hope to increase the area under the Special Project threefold in 2003 so that by the end of this year, 100 hectares of land could have been wetted up in key locations around Cumbria.

To apply for the Special Project, any farmer/landowner with at least 2 hectares of suitable land for wetting up should contact RDS on (01768) 860700 for a CSS Application Pack. A leaflet on the Special Project is available, and the deadline for applications is the 30th April 2003.

Tim Youngs

Countryside Stewardship Project Officer, RDS Penrith