The Golden Wellies - half time

The half time scores (end of spring migration) have just been released for The Golden Wellies, the RSPB’s internal competition to find the best passage wader site each year (last years result here and a photo of the Frampton trophy cabinet above).  There are both league and knockout elements to the competition to test good wetland management throughout the year.  Monthly counts of waders are recorded, they have to be ‘feet down’ on a managed fresh/brackish scrape or flood (not tidal).

The top of the Premier League has a familiar feel with Frampton Marsh just pipping Minsmere with a total of 27 species so far.  Amongst the cluster of sites just below them, Havergate Island has leapt up the table this year after the completion of the new scrape at Hollesley.  However, this years most improved site so far is Middleton Lakes, heading The Championship on 24 species.  

Spring wader highlights were dominated by Black-winged Stilts, being recorded at 9 sites. Traditional spring migrants such as Temminck's Stints were in lower numbers than usual but June saw a typical flurry of Red-necked Phalarope records.  The tables stand as follows:  

The Premier League                                             The Championship

1. Frampton Marsh 27 species                             1. Middleton Lakes  24 species

2. Minsmere 26                                                     2. Arne  21

3. Havergate Island 24                                         3. Saltholme 21 

4. Rainham Marshes 24                                       4. Campfield Marsh 20

5. Burton Mere 24                                                5. Cattawade 18

6. Exe Estuary 23                                                 6. Blacktoft 17

7. Dearne Valley 22                                             7. Loch of Strathbeg 17

8. Old Hall Marshes 22                                        8. Otmoor 17

9. South Essex Marshes 22                                  9. Leighton Moss 17

10. Fairburn Ings 21                                            10. Mid-Yare 15

11. Dungeness 21                                                11. Belfast Lough 15

12. Lodmoor/Radipole 21                                   12. Fen Drayton 15

13. Ouse Fen 19                                                   13. Pulborough Brooks 12

14. Titchwell 19                                                   14. Snettisham 12

15. Conwy 15                                                      15. Ham Wall 11

16. Ouse Washes 14                                           

The knockout Gordon Allison Trophy has progressed to the quarter-final stage (to be played during July) with the draw shown below. A bitter local derby will be fought out between Fairburn and Dearne Valley, while in-form and muddy Middleton Lakes (below) will be hoping to dispatch dried-up old Dungeness.

Belfast Harbour v Conwy                              Burton Mere v Blacktoft

Fairburn Ings v Dearne Valley                     Frampton v Mid Yare

Middleton Lakes v Dungeness                    Minsmere v Exe Estuary

Guest blog - Bruncher Badger

Hi to all you dopey conservationists (no offence ha ha).  My name is Bruncher Badger and I’ve been asked to write a guest blog for Grumpy.  Now you conservationists have been very kind to me, so I thought I would give something back in return.  The way you stood up for me against that despicable Owen Paterson has been a source of great joy for us badgers.  And that Brian May is great also.  I’ve always liked him since I had a sett under the floorboards of the Hammersmith Odeon back in 1972.  Him and his mates had a good little support band.  Not as good as the great Mott the Hoople though!

Anyway, back to the point.  I gather that there were a few gasps of surprise after that footage of me eating my breakfast on Springwatch.  Guess how I got my name – I ‘brunch’ on your baby birds  ha ha brilliant.  Hey, to us, wader chicks are nature’s little biscuits and we love’em.  They are a nice crunchy change to the usual boring old worms.  Even that very nice, clever Mr Packham (didn’t he do well on Malta!) noticed the calorific value of that snack!  Mind you I couldn’t eat more than 30 chicks in a sitting ha ha.  Anyway the point is; what do you expect?   You create excellent concentrations of ground-nesting birds on your nature reserves and then you expect me and my mate Freemeal Foxie to keep away.  Well I’ll tell you; we’ll walk miles to get at these super cafes.  You set up nature reserves around the place and provide food for us.  Lovely.  Don’t you even seem to think about what’s happening when bird numbers begin to decline.  Normally we have to search around for what we can find, but you dumb conservationists concentrate it in one place for us, year after year.  We nip in and out when you’re not looking and polish them off.  We’re not even members  ha ha ha! There’s even one Wildlife Trust site where they kindly guard the Avocets so those nasty men don’t pinch the eggs and then we can come along to munch up those tasty chicks for our breakfast.  We call them Shredded Tweet or Tweetabix  Ha ha  geddit!  And funnier still, you think we can’t swim! Ha ha. Did you see me in my speedo’s at Minsmere?  You lot need to be thinking a lot cleverer about how you manage sites.  Why don't you move birds around by rotational management, turning sites 'on and off' and making it more difficult for us to find all that lovely food?

Anyway, as I said, I’m here to return a favour.  Those dopey ecologists of yours, the ones that you don’t listen to, they know a trick or two to slow us down.  They have a design for an electrified anti-predator fence that keeps us out.  You ask those guys down at Otmoor, we 've never managed to get through their fence. See my photo below.  But even then, when you are given the design, you think you know better and modify it.  You put the offset wire in the wrong place or space the live wires wrongly.  We think it’s hilarious as we skip over the fence.  My mate Freemeal Foxie knows all the tricks for getting over.  

Anyway, you need a combination fence (stock fencing plus live wires) of at least 1.5m, buried into the ground at least 25 cm.  The livestock fencing should be 1.25m high with a 6-8cm wire mesh.  There should be 2 live wires above the fence; at 1.15m and 1.45m, with an earth wire between them at 1.3 m. The fence needs a live wire 65cm up from the ground on the outside and offset by 15 cm.  This stops us jumping up.  Power with battery or mains and take extra care around gates or ditches.   And don't bother with those strand electric fences, they are no good – we just bundle straight through!  This is all a bit simplified but I'm sure you can find more detail.

So there you are, the answer to your problem.  Anyway must go and get a few more Tweetabix while I can.  Those Minsmere guys have already started on a brand new fence.   Then it’s back to worms for us.  I’m fed up with all them bones anyway.

The Cuckoo, the Crab and the Cook

Heard the one about the Cuckoo, the Crab and the Cook? Whilst down at the reserve in Chongming Dongtan we met Miss Wang Junyan from Fudan University deep in the reedbed studying the productivity of Oriental Reed Warblers. They are common; probably thousands of breeding pairs. They are parasitised by Eurasian Cuckoos, which are also common.  In fact in one study, 25% of Oriental Reed Warbler nests contained Cuckoos nestlings.  Another abundant inhabitant of the reed beds is the Mudflat Crab Chiromantes dehaani, which rather amazingly can climb reed stems.  It also turns out to be a nest predator, eating both eggs and chicks of both warbler and cuckoo.  Apparently, the same study found that 39% of nests are predated by crabs. Or more accurately, 39% of failed nests have crab droppings in them.  Crabs seem to like to climb up the reeds and sit in the nests. At an average height of 1.6 m to a nest, this seems a fair climb for a crab.

We searched through the reed beds and found a few nests of both Oriental Reed Warbler and Reed Parrotbill.  The nests are similar in appearance but the Parrotbill lays on average 10 days earlier than the warbler, the nest is lower at 130 cm above water on average and is built of reed leaves slung between old reed stems. The warbler, by contrast, nests at 160 cm above water on average, uses new stems to support the nest and constructs with grass collected from outside the reedbed.  These two common birds in the reedbed forage on entirely different food items.  The Parrotbill eats wing-less insects, such as scale insects and stem-boring caterpillars, taken from concealed locations in the reed, while the warbler almost exclusively eats adult flying insects. There seems to be lots of unanswered questions about crab predation of reedbed birds.

Does water level affect the level of predation?  Do crabs just like to sit in old nests?

The crabs have a major predator themselves; man. The locals catch, net, trap and pick crabs from the reserve by the ton, despite the fact that only the claws are worth eating. We decided to weigh in on the side of the warbler and polished off a good many crab claws, nicely cooked with the holy trinity of garlic, ginger and chilli, a splash of soya sauce, a sprinkling of chopped spring onions and washed down with a cold beer.  Yum.



Top pics - the crab climbing reeds and Oriental Reed Warbler.

Ringing warbler chicks from a nest with a nest camera in place.

Reed Parrotbill nest

Oriental Reed Warbler nest with crab droppings

Reed Parrotbill feeding signs on reed

…and the food, scale insects

Yellow Bittern chicks

my dinner

Return to Chongming

The Chinese don't hang about. We are back working with colleagues at Chongming Dongtan National Nature Reserve 9 months after our last visit. In that time, 27 km of new 8 m high sea wall had been almost completed and a series of sluices (water gates -top photo) were under construction. We are back to discuss the finer details of the snappily named Bird Habitat Optimisation Project.  Chongming Dongtan

is located in the mouth of the Yangtze River and is a major staging post for waders on the East Asian-Australasian flyway, particularly important for Great Knot, Far Eastern Curlew and Nordmann’s Greenshank.

The project aims to firstly eradicate, by cutting and flooding, invasive non-native Spartina alterniflora that has spread across 16 km² of mudflats, and secondly, to create habitats to support the priority species within the 25 km² project area; waders, wildfowl, cranes and reedbed specialists such as Reed Parrotbill.

The current visit provides an opportunity to assess the breeding birds of the reserve. Apart from the star turn, the Reed Parrotbill, the reedbeds support large numbers of Oriental Reed Warblers, which in turn are the host for large numbers of Eurasian Cuckoo (but more of this story in a later post). Herons are another key group, with large numbers of Yellow Bittern as well as egrets, Purple Heron and Night Heron. We found enough Cinnamon Bitterns to suggest they are breeding in good numbers and also added Schrenck's Bittern, which may also be breeding, to the reserve list. Whiskered Tern and Pheasant-tailed Jacana are found on the pools and a selection of waders breed, including Grey-headed Lapwing, Black-winged Stilt and Kentish Plover. Views of Slaty-breasted Rail and another small crake, supposedly out of range, suggest there is more to find out about the reserve. 
One small issue is that the newly arrived Spartina now supports it's own bird community, including the scarce Marsh Grassbird, although this is now considered to be fairly widespread in China. It is certainly numerous at Chongming; it's fluttering display flight and twirly song evident throughout.



Autumn passage is just underway. Greenshank, Red-necked Stint, Marsh Sandpiper, Far Eastern Curlew and Oriental Pratincole are the fore-runners of a deluge of waders later in the coming months.

The week progresses and we discuss water regimes, salinity, salt marsh restoration, the benthic fauna and species requirements.  Slowly, a detailed management programme comes together.  Islands, channels and pools are shaped and located by the ecologists and passed on to the engineers to do the 'cut and fill' maths.  The digital projector displays continually changing topographical maps until we reach the final design.  Where will spring passage waders feed?  Can we create roosting areas for Great Knot? Will that cater for Spot-billed Ducks? What water depths will deter the crabs from predating the Reed Warblers? Where will we aim to establish a new colony of egrets? How to entice Saunders' Gull to nest. What does Spoon-billed Sandpiper feed on?

Between workshops, we sampled most of the inhabitants of the reserve area; big fish, small fish, poison fish, gobies, mudskippers, freshwater shrimps, brackish shrimps, jellyfish, big clams, small clams, razor clams, winkles, crayfish, crabs, duck soup and ducks tongues.  Delicious they were too!





Photos; above - water gate, the perimeter ditch (!), presenting designs.

Below - Grey-tailed Tattler, Red-necked Stint, Yellow Bittern, Sharp-tailed Sandpiper.