22/01/25 - Woodcock

Around 100,000 breeding Woodcock in the UK increase to in excess of a million birds wintering here, as birds from Eastern Europe move west in search of milder conditions. These birds spend the nights feeding (largely on earthworms) on farmland, pasture and the Ings grasslands after dark, before then spending the daytime in dense cover in the undergrowth of hedgerows and woodlands. Here their cryptic camouflage comes into its own as they melt away into the leaf litter on the woodland floor. Although you’re unlikely to spot one on a visit to the reserve (unless you’re present at dusk when they can sometimes be seen flying around the Wheldrake car park area), they usually appear after dark and are found using our thermal camera’s which have helped us to understand their requirements and habitat use in the local area.

In December, prior to the floods, we caught and ringed a Woodcock and Jack Snipe on Wheldrake Ings, and just four days later we recaught both of those birds together over 5 km away on pasture fields near Elvington Airfield, having been displaced from the reserve due to the extensive flooding. Knowing just how birds might move round the landscape and surrounding fields in response to flooding and other conditions helps us better target conservation measures, to ensure other suitable and equally vital habitats are protected and managed for these rather secretive and previously poorly understood and under-recorded species.

19/01/25 - Smew arrival

Over the last week it has been fantastic to see two Smew arrive in the #LDV. A male first appeared at Wheldrake Ings where it was then joined by a female (red-head) over the weekend, with the pair spending time on both the pool and nearby Swantail Ings – make sure to visit soon to enjoy these stunning ducks if you can.

Smew are winter visitors to the UK, with most birds not arriving until at least December and leaving again by the middle of March, before spending the summer in the taiga forests of northern Scandinavia and Russia, where they nest around lakes, ponds, rivers and other water-logged places – ideally with plenty of trees where they nest in holes and cavities.

The number of Smew reaching the UK each winter has sadly decreased dramatically in recent decades, with them now considered a scarce visitor (over recent years not more than 100 individuals have wintered in the whole of Britain). This decrease has been attributed to the effects of climate change, with warmer winters reducing the distance they have to travel from their breeding grounds to escape freezing conditions. However, numbers/sightings across the reserve over the last decade have actually shown an increase in contrast to the national trend, which may reflect a shift in range from previous key sites in southern England. Other species possibly appearing as a result of the recent cold weather include several White-fronted Geese, two Tundra Beans, Hen Harrier, Scaup and a Short-eared Owl, so plenty to look out for as we head towards our World Wetlands Day celebrations at Melbourne Village Hall on Saturday 1st February. 

Thanks to #LDV volunteer and artist Dominique Vassie for the wonderful sketch.

07/01/25 - Date for your diary!

This year we are holding a World Wetlands Day celebration at Melbourne Village Hall on Saturday 1st February 10.30am-3.30pm – come along to what will we be an amazing family fun day and find out just how special the Lower Derwent Valley and its wildlife is, with opportunities to meet the team, try out some practical volunteering taster sessions, enjoy some children’s art exhibitions, guided walks and bird ringing demonstrations. There is also the chance to meet our special guest 😁 Shaun the Sheep is back and explaining how we can all enjoy our very special nature reserve responsibly using the Countryside Code.

World Wetlands Day is celebrated annually on the 2nd February, with the aim of raising global awareness about the vital role of wetlands for people and the planet. The day also marks the date of the adoption of the Convention on Wetlands on the 2nd February 1971, in the Iranian city of Ramsar on the shores of the Caspian Sea, and is the reason the #LDV is now a Ramsar site. The day celebrates all the benefits wetlands bring – from biodiversity, flood storage and reduction, food and jobs, clean water and access to health environments for recreation – definitely plenty to celebrate here, with this year’s theme ‘protecting wetlands for our common future’.

https://www.worldwetlandsday.org/display-event?p_p_id=eventDisplay&eventEntryId=1663016&redirect=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.worldwetlandsday.org%2Fevents%23event1663016&fbclid=IwY2xjawHswJtleHRuA2FlbQIxMAABHXTFmZwyss-BmSObepj8YPJDQicMkkUQ5hmPZThB9uZxhGvp-OloonyJEg_aem_wOexjBCANL3_Yr0gQtHonQ

02/12/24 - World Science Day

World Science Day was celebrated recently and so we thought it might be worth sharing some of the new technology that we’ve been employing around the Lower Derwent Valley NNR. 

Earlier this year we posted about some of our work researching the feeding sites (outside of the protected reserve area) for the nationally important spring passage roost of Whimbrel by using radio tags and more recently GPS tags, and since then we’ve turned our attentions to Golden Plover. Three individuals have been fitted with GPS tags over the last few weeks, which can store fixes of the location of the bird every 15 minutes, with the data stored on the tag until the bird comes into the range of one of our base stations which will then download all of the data. From that download we can then produce maps that shows the movements and important feeding and roosting areas, both day and night. 

Such technology is helping us to understand how birds use the reserve and the surrounding landscape, and therefore how we can best help them by developing the right measures in the right places. We are also working with a number of partners to roll this project out into the wider area over to the Humber and its internationally important population of Golden Plover. The map below shows just a couple of days' worth of data, showing that some of the birds are feeding in fields around Wheldrake village and just outside Sutton on Derwent. 

Many thanks to our great team for their efforts recently helping to collect this valuable data.

06/10/24 - Bearded Tits

With autumn well and truly here, the next couple of months offers the best time of year to locate Bearded Tits in the Lower Derwent Valley, and following on from a group of four near Riccall on Friday, four were then present at Wheldrake Ings on Saturday followed by seventeen there yesterday, with another two at Melbourne. This makes this year one of the best years on record for the area already.

Resident in the UK throughout the year, Bearded Tits often disperse from their breeding sites in extensive reedbeds during the autumn, sometimes undertaking regular ‘eruptions’ (a term used when flocks of birds rise out of their breeding reedbeds and take high towering flights with lots of excited calling). Small groups then peel off and disperse and it is these birds that can turn up at this time of year away from their usual haunts, making it a good time to look out for them in suitable habitat within the area.

Any areas with reedbeds or reed fringes are worth checking for these fantastic little birds, often first noticed by their distinctive ‘pinging’ calls. The small reedbeds at Wheldrake Ings have been a local ‘hotspot’ in previous years - however, areas of reed along the Pocklington Canal are also worth checking. Hopefully recent work driven by the Friends of the LDV (thanks to grants from York Birding, the Local Nature Partnership, Betty’s and Yorkshire Water in creating new reedbed habitat), will help create areas for future erupting birds. Many thanks to local birder Duncan Bye for this fantastic image of a stunning male, taken at Wheldrake Ings over the weekend. Whilst visiting the site please do let us know if you hear or see any Bearded Tits, or anything else of note, thank you.