Shorebird Nesting Season Begins to Draw to a Close
Shorebird nesting season is beginning to draw to a close on the Northumberland Coast. Ringed plovers and oystercatchers have faced four months fraught with danger and peril – successfully raising chicks to fledging is a mammoth task.
Back in March, rangers Richard and Katherine, along with a dedicated team of volunteer ringed plover surveyors from Coast Care, were out on the coast monitoring ringed plover behaviour to look for signs of potential nesting sites. These birds nest in pairs in territories, rather than in big colonies like Arctic and little terns. Courtship displays take place before a territory can be formed, and tracking where the birds are at this stage in the season can give us an early indication as to where the birds are going to nest.
On 23rd April, we located the first ringed plover nest of the season at Snook Point, Newton-by-the-Sea; two adult birds displaying and chasing away any other birds that strayed too close to their territory. After a short wait and watch from a distance, sure enough an adult bird walked to a sheltered spot in the shingle and settled on the ground – the first eggs had been laid.
In the weeks that followed, ringed plover nests were discovered all along the coast from Spittal Point in the north of the County to Lynmouth in the south. Eggs are laid directly onto the ground in a nest know as a scrape and they are extremely well camouflaged. After an assessment of each site we protected as many of the nests as we could using flexi netting and signage to reduce disturbance to the birds and prevent the eggs from being accidentally trampled by a foot or a paw.
A nest protection site at Dell Point, Beadnell, where two pairs of ringed plover attempted to nest this year
However these small birds face a number of other threats during this time of the year including ground and aerial predators, high spring tides and harsh weather conditions, and unfortunately many of the first wave of nesting attempts were unsuccessful.
BUT – ringed plovers are extremely hardy little birds and will more often than not have a second, third or even fourth nest attempt if their previous broods have been unsuccessful. Their tenacity is admirable, and we continued to protect the relayed nests all throughout the season.
One success story came from the pair of ringed plovers which nested on an extremely busy section of beach on Embleton Bay. The pair sat tight on their eggs for a long 25 days and were rewarded when four chicks emerged from the nest, who quickly began exploring their surroundings – often pushing the boundaries of the safety of the fencing! Being wading birds, their natural source of food are small marine creatures living within wet sand and mud, and so the parent birds would often lead their small chicks on the precarious journey to the sea when the beach was quiet. Depending on the state of the tide, they were sometimes almost 100 metres or so away from the nest protection area – a long distance to run when danger approached.
A daring ringed plover chick diving into the vegetation for cover when it ventured too far away from the safety of the nest protection area at Embleton
Although this stretch of beach is so busy and may have seemed an unsuitable place to make a nest at first, these birds picked an ideal place to raise their chicks. Once protected with fencing to keep people and dogs away, the chicks had access to a large section of The Skaith burn to forage along almost completely undisturbed – a luxury that few of the other pairs of nesting birds had this season.
Rangers and volunteers were on ‘chick watch’ to keep an eye on the birds and talk to visitors about the nest protection site and why it is so important to give it space. Unfortunately, two of the young chicks were predated, probably by crows, however the remaining two continued to grow and on 29th June they stretched their wings and took to the air – two fledglings at last!
Monitoring and protecting the chicks at Embleton has been a huge team effort, and we have so many people to thank. The volunteers from Coast Care have been outstanding and we are extremely grateful to them for giving up their time to help us keep the vulnerable birds safe. To the many hundreds of visitors and local residents we have spoken to over the past four months, we owe the success of these birds to you for giving the birds the space they needed to raise their chicks with minimal disturbance. Thank you for making us and birds feel so welcome. A final thanks is to the landowner, the National Trust, who’s support has been invaluable.
One of the two ringed plover fledglings at Embleton
For the other nests elsewhere on the coast, their stories have been less successful. These small birds really do face a mighty challenge when trying to navigate the dangers of the breeding season. Nature can be rough, so it falls to us all to help at least remove human pressures from their lives.
The nesting season may be drawing to a close, but it is not yet over! There is still time for ringed plovers to make a last nesting attempt. Any birds on eggs at this time will be extremely sensitive to disturbance so giving the nest protection areas space is essential to give the birds the best chance possible of successfully raising their chicks.
