Using National Nature Reserves as places of research and
monitoring has always been an important part of their role – and it’s always
good to use the reserves as demonstration sites and to be able to share
experiences from the wealth of knowledge from around the
national NNR series.
Last week Tom Bolderstone, reserve manager from
Dersingham Bog NNR in North Norfolk came up to spend a couple of days with the
LDV NNR staff and volunteer ringers in a study tour to share and exchange ideas. On arrival Tom met up with reserve staff and had a look round
the NNR finding out about our science and research programme, how it's managed
and how volunteers play a vital role in delivering that work, especially in the
face of reducing budgets and resources. The following day saw Tom join Mike and some of our volunteers to find out how it all works from
their perspective, and he even managed a little bit of ringing, catching a Little Grebe on the River Derwent using a floating net – a new species and technique for Tom.
The Pocklington Canal is a favoured
location for Little Grebes, with three being present over the last few weeks. Over recent years several birds have been caught here, and a
total of 43 have been ringed in the valley since ringing began in 1989. However
we are yet to receive any information or re-sightings (several caught here have
been colour-ringed). Not many Little Grebes are ringed in the UK each year,
with just 1674 caught since ringing began over 100 years ago, so any
information of their movements would help move forward our understanding of the
species.
The evening saw the ‘team’ then undertake a successful Reed Bunting roost catch in a local reedbed, accounting for 50 newly ringed Reed Buntings - a pleasing catch and a good number to add to the sample that Mike ringed towards the end of the summer.
It was a pleasure having Tom up here for a couple days and good to find out about some of the amazing work being carried out tagging Nightjars at Dersingham. We wish Tom and his colleagues well with their ringing activities and look forward to hearing about all the soon to be caught Little Grebes in Norfolk.
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