08/10/25 - Corncrake-filled summer

Well, June feels like an awful long time ago now, and how busy we have been reflects the absence of posts to this account, with normal service set to resume, but we've been rather preoccupied doing our very best to help increase the population of Corncrakes in England... 

After months of hard work on the ground we’re delighted to be able to share the news that our team, comprising the Friends of the LDV, Carstairs Countryside Trust and Natural England, have teamed up with Deepdale Conservation Trust in Norfolk, in an attempt to bring Corncrakes back into the soundscape of the Ings wonderful hay meadows. Whilst the reserve here is probably the most reliable place in England for attracting Corncrakes, with one or two singing males recorded most years (and larger numbers/potential breeding has occurred in some of those years), this project is seeking to build and reinforce numbers to a self-sustaining population of up to 50 singing males.

A captive breeding population of chicks taken from the Scottish population have been held by Deepdale Conservation Trust over the summer, where expert aviculturists paired the birds and allowed them to parent-rear their chicks. At 14 days old these chicks were then transferred during the night to the LDV’s pre-release pens, where they remained until 34-35 days old, allowing them to fix on the night sky and enable them to hopefully know the LDV as ‘home’. Once released these birds will have hopefully migrated as normal to Africa for the winter, but the hope is that some will then return to the Ings next year to breed and mix with wild birds, giving the population a real boost.

Back in April following the news of the project, our team only had three weeks to build the pre-release pens, which would soon be home to the Corncrake chicks. The pens needed to be predator proof (down to the size of a weasel, which can fit through a finger sized hole), over-wired and completely safe for the birds to avoid any welfare issues or injuries. This took a monumental effort by our small team of staff and willing volunteers, who stepped up and put in long hours, assisted by the young people and staff of Ad Astra who produced the frames, as well as our corporate groups who leant a hand – so a fantastic team effort, and without it we simply could not have got the job done and the pens ready in time.

Furthermore, ahead of the first birds that arrived in late May we needed to have the individual pens (16 in total) vegetated with nettles, meadow sweet, yellow flag iris and other vegetation favoured by Corncrakes to give them enough cover to thrive. So there followed plenty of transplanting, watering, fertilising and ‘gardening’ by the team before the first brood of five arrived, just as the 20,000 staple went in!

 

Once the chicks were ready to leave their breeding pens in Norfolk (aged 14 days old) they were driven overnight to our pre-release pens in the Lower Derwent Valley and were kept together as broods in separate pens. From then on they spent the next three weeks in these pens, being fed twice a day on a mixture of specialist pellets and mealworms which have been fed on a nutrient-rich diet. Over this three-week period the diet was altered as the chicks grew in age to prepare them for a more natural diet out in the wild, before they were released following a veterinarian health check, when they were also ringed, colour-ringed, DNA swabbed and (for a small sample of birds), fitted with tracking tags. Attaching this small tag allowed us to monitor the birds post-release and see how they were using the area and habitat around the reserve, all helping to provide valuable information for managing the site going forward to further help these birds. The tags indicated that the birds were staying an additional week to 10 days, and departing on the mean average date we would expect from wild Scottish birds. All that is left now is to hope that some of these birds return next spring, which is when we will need your help from mid-April, in listening out for and sending us records of calling individuals around the reserve, so please do get in touch and let us know if you hear one.

Whilst this project is far from over, we are at the end of our first year of releases, which wouldn’t have been possible without the help of all of our partners and supporters, so huge thanks must go to the Friends of LDV, Carstairs Countryside Trust, Natural England, Deepdale Conservation Trust, Ad Astra, Drax and our fantastic volunteer team and corporate volunteer network, as well as to all of you who have supported the Friends via card sales, logs, talks and making donations – you have helped in our efforts to bring Corncrakes back to the Lower Derwent Valley, to Yorkshire and to England.

02/06/25 - Britcon reedbed

A fantastic effort was made in the #LDV recently by the Britcon families & staff, who are not only building our new NNR Base, but working alongside our team helped to plant over 2,000 reeds in our new reedbed areas at Bank Island. Thanks to our friends at Tophill Low LNR we were also able to plant Greater Water Parsnip, Marsh Pea, Water Dock and other local wetland plants into the reedbeds, to increase diversity and act as reservoir sites for other areas. When visiting the site, you will see that this reedbed has been planted in memory of one of the much-loved members of the Britcon team, Ashley Kent, with the aim of the project being to create a real legacy in Ash’s memory.

 

We’re very grateful to the Britcon team and all of the other volunteers who joined in on the day, including our own team who remained into the evening to ensure a good watering of the plants due to the drought conditions we were experiencing at the time – the rain this week might not have been welcome to holidaymakers but it has certainly helped the reeds! This time last year we would have needed to pump water out of the site to even try and plant the reeds in there – what a difference a year makes!

 

 

Whilst the focus of a task day is always the task itself, we always try to provide a memorable day for those involved, either by checking the contents of the moth trap or ringing a few birds, all helping to showcase the work that we do, as well as the Friends of the #LDV and Natural England. If you might be interested in organising a task day on the reserve for yourself or your team, please don’t hesitate to get in touch.

06/05/25 - Tern arrival

Following the report of a pair of Common Terns back in the Lower Derwent Valley recently, our team relaunched the tern rafts last week for another season, and we’re now pleased to say that the pair have already taken up residency on one of the rafts on the pool at Wheldrake.

Common Terns used to be a regular spring passage migrant to the reserve, with occasional, but unsuccessful breeding attempts, however, thanks to a generous private donation to the Friends in 2017, two tern rafts were provided which resulted in the first successful breeding attempt for the site, with a single pair raising two young. Since then, and with an additional two tern rafts being provided, a total of 28 young have been reared and ringed on the reserve. From these colour-ringed birds we have had six subsequent resightings; a bird returning in its first summer to Lancashire, another seen during its first winter off the coast of The Gambia, Western Africa, and others subsequently breeding on the Farne Islands and in the RSPB Aire Valley. It’s amazing to think these birds cover such huge distances during the year and return each spring to the rafts in the Lower Derwent - fingers crossed for another successful year.

15/03/25 - Shelduck milestone

On the 12th February 2000 we caught and ringed the first Shelduck for the Lower Derwent Valley on the top pond at North Duffield Carrs, and now, 25 years later, we've just ringed the 1000th individual at Bank Island. Whilst that represents something of a milestone itself, the numbers are not the important thing, but rather the amount of data that those birds (as part of our long running colour-ringing project) have produced over the years, to help our understanding of Shelduck both on the reserve and in the wider area. 

‘Our’ birds include: the longevity record for the species from the BTO ringing scheme (over 20 years old), regularly returning breeding birds to the LDV year after year, and birds visiting moulting sites on the Dutch/German Wadden Sea, the Humber and other estuaries around the UK.

The map below shows a strong association with the northwest, and it is suspected that the Dee Estuary could now be a new moulting site, with young birds beginning to recruit into it over the last decade or so. Indeed, stable isotope work carried out by Ros Green (as part of a PhD study into the species) has provided very different data from the Dee compared to all of the other northwest European moult sites, and it will be interesting to see how that moulting site develops and with it, the links to the Lower Derwent Valley. A total of 100 birds had small feather samples taken by our team over the 2024/25 winter to allow such analysis, and help us understand how Shelduck use the site here. Many thanks to all involved for helping to collect this valuable data.

03/03/25 - Black-tailed Godwit increase

A species which is now a highlight in the Lower Derwent Valley each spring is the Black-tailed Godwit, which has increased dramatically in recent years and now occurs earlier than previously. During the early 1990s spring passage flocks increased from 20–30 birds to flocks of up to 100, often appearing for just a day in late April and early May. However, since then, as the Icelandic breeding population has grown, numbers here have also increased, with peak counts now usually occurring in March. This year up to 200 have been present from early February with 543 recorded over the weekend at Wheldrake Ings, with further birds expected to arrive and build up over the coming weeks. These birds are usually best looked for at either Wheldrake Ings or North Duffield Carrs, with the spring passage flocks of summer plumaged birds a real spectacle – last year numbers peaked at 1,120 on the 20th March at Wheldrake Ings – certainly one to look out for on your next visit.