05/08/18 - Harvesting/wader scrapes

Over the last couple of months our staff and volunteers have been out and about on the Ings harvesting the meadows, albeit not in the traditional sense. Prior to the local farmers taking the hay crop, our team have been using a seed harvester to gather seeds from the hay meadows across the site. We’ve staggered this harvest to collect a wide range of grass and herb species from the reserve as individual species ripen and are ready to be collected. All of this seed is dried (which has been easy to do this year with the very dry, hot and sunny weather), and is now ready to be used to enhance other meadow restoration sites elsewhere in the local area and occasionally further afield.

It’s great to be able to use our NNR’s in this way – not only does it help create pockets of species rich grassland which can be used as stepping stones through the landscape, but it also provides more sustainable and resilient grassland to withstand seasonal flooding events, and can be used for grazing animals and agricultural production, as well as creating areas for people to enjoy. It’s also a great way to raise a little bit of extra money through donations to help support further conservation efforts in the valley. We’ll be out and about next week across the county helping to spread the same seed at the recipient sites - if you’d like some then please feel free to get in touch.

Recently our great team of staff and volunteers have also been working further afield at Hornsea Mere – a site that we have helped out at over recent years for various tasks, this time the plan was to help control Himalayan Balsam around the edge of the Mere. We’ve also been working hard to control this invasive non-native species throughout the valley, and with great success. Fortunately, the seeds of balsam are only viable for a relatively short period (a couple of years), so if we can prevent (or at least reduce) it seeding for a couple of years, it leads to a marked reduction. However if it is left unchecked, it will completely take over, forming dense carpets and swamping out the rest of the natural vegetation. Hopefully the efforts by our team will help the native flora surrounding the Mere. Many thanks to our team for travelling even further than they normally do, and for their efforts on the day, despite the heat, brambles and nettles!

Visitors to Bank Island of late will have seen the diggers and tractors busy working on the site creating an expanded and improved network of shallow scrapes, pools and areas ready for the creation of new reedbed habitats. These seasonal shallow scrapes are designed to hold water a bit longer in the spring, drawing down as the season progresses to reveal fresh mud and the wealth of insect life that thrives in them. These are then in turn available to our breeding waders and more importantly their chicks (with their short bills that cannot probe deep into the mud), and instead pick up insects on the surface of the damp mud.

Hopefully these new earthworks will prove invaluable in helping our local Lapwing, Snipe and Redshank populations in the valley, with the possibility of also attracting other species of passing waders. A couple of areas of new reedbeds will also hopefully provide suitable conditions for Water Rails, wintering Bitterns, Spotted Crakes and various warblers and buntings. With the work nearly finished for this year we just need a drop of rain sometime to start to filling them up! 

30/07/18 - Nestle 'tern' up

Last week it was great to welcome back a small but hardworking team from Nestle in York, for two days of corporate volunteering. Working alongside our own volunteers during the two days, the first day (despite the intense heat), the team got stuck into clearing and coppicing willows at Wheldrake Ings - helping to improve the openness and landscape of the site. Ongoing work like this over the last few years has undoubtedly helped some of our key wildlife, and by reducing the number of crow nesting sites and perches, has also helped our local waders to have such a productive year.  
 

After a productive first day of scrub clearance the team then made their way to the pool to ring the brood of Common Tern chicks - great way to end the day. This is the second brood to have hatched this year on the NNR, following on from the first brood, also of three, at North Duffield Carrs. Not only have the chicks been metal ringed with rings from the British Trust for Ornithology, but they have also been fitted with black darvics bearing white numbers. The brood at NDC have now fledged so they could be elsewhere in the county, or perhaps further afield.

The second day was spent helping with improvements to Pool Hide, boarding out the hide ready for the new interpretation material this autumn, to help explain the work being undertaken in the valley to help our local (and not so local) wildlife. The team were also able to see some ringing taking place on site (including the capture of only the second French ringed Sedge Warbler to be found on the reserve), as well as being treated to a flock of 25 Black-tailed Godwits fresh in from Iceland - resting and feeding up on their migration to the wintering area further south. Many thanks to all the team for their sterling efforts which makes such a difference to what we can achieve with our declining resources.

24/07/18 - Good year for ducks

Whilst working with the contractors creating the new wader scrapes recently at Bank Island, we came across a brood of Gadwall ducklings on the small pond. After rallying the troops four of the ducklings were located from the vegetation around the side of the pond, and with all four individuals being a good size for ringing they were fitted with metal BTO rings (allowing us to track their movements if they are to be caught/recovered elsewhere). The Gadwall population in the LDV has increased dramatically over recent decades, with up to 100 pairs thought to have been present throughout the valley this year during the breeding season, including good numbers of broods seen.

Very few Gadwall ducklings are ringed in the UK, however the seasonal water levels in the valley mean that we can occasionally ring broods present on the ditches and small pools around the site, allowing us to find out about the movements of ‘our’ locally bred British birds. Earlier in the year we heard about a duckling that was ringed here in 2012 - now present in breeding habitat in the Netherlands – showing the need for joined up international action for conserving our migratory waterfowl species. Thanks as always to our team for their efforts in helping us to carry out bird ringing activities on the reserve, we couldn’t do it all without them.

Following on from our Gadwall post, we’re also rather fond of another of our key duck species – the fantastic and brilliantly named Shoveler. Not only is it a great looking duck with a fabulous bill for filtering out all those prey items, but the valley holds nationally important breeding and wintering populations. The LDV is just about the only place in the UK where regular numbers of British bred ducklings are caught and ringed, providing valuable data to help our understanding of this population – where they go to, hunting pressure across their range, longevity and other information that can help conservation strategies. We’ve managed to catch and ring five ducklings so far this year, which unfortunately is much lower than normal. Previous recoveries of Shoveler ducklings have come from France in the autumn and Russia in the following breeding season. Hopefully we might hear about this one on his travels!

 

17/07/18 - Kestrels

Although the recent weather of late has been quite simply amazing, some of our wildlife around the valley are still feeling the effects of the 'beast from the east'. This freezing cold snap had a profound effect on some species like our Barn Owls, and to a lesser degree, our local Kestrel population. Some have failed to get back into breeding condition in time to nest this year, whilst others are running a few weeks behind their normal timescales. Those that have bred are rearing smaller broods than we’ve found in recent years, although in the long term this ‘year off’ is likely to have little effect on the overall population.

At this time of year we normally enjoy the antics of newly fledged broods practising their hunting skills on the Ings, flying from bale to bale and following the tractors cutting and turning the hay. However this year it might just be adults to admire, like this fantastic looking male taking advantage of the additional hunting and vantage perches at North Duffield Carrs last week. 

 

Yesterday on our way to North Duffield for a day of seed harvesting, we visited one of our regular breeding sites near Skipwith village. With not great news so far regarding occupied boxes and clutch sizes, it was great to see a couple of healthy chicks on arrival. It’s a shame that some of our regular pairs haven’t attempted breeding this year following the earlier freezing weather in the spring, but it’s nice to know that at least another couple of young Kestrels will be joining our local population in the next couple of weeks as they wander away from their nest site. Having now ringed them we might hopefully hear about them again in the future. A couple of our local chicks have wandered down into Lincolnshire in previous autumns, and one intrepid explorer made it as far as London!