YCN Grant Helps Golden Plover Research in Yorkshire

Sat 7th Dec, 2024

The Lower Derwent Valley National Nature Reserve (NNR) currently extends over 800ha of a much larger 1100ha designed site and is an increasingly important refuge for both birds and those seeking to enjoy watching them. However, in 1970 none of the land had statutory protection or was in conservation ownership as part of the NNR, and it is worth remembering that none of the designations, land purchases, targeting of Agri-environment schemes and wider conservation efforts would have been possible without evidence – and good robust evidence at that.

The Lower Derwent Valley National Nature Reserve © Richard Baines

Various breeding bird surveys, counts, ringing studies and casual records from visiting birders have all provided some of that evidence, and more recently the use of thermal technology has allowed the further study of birds on the site and surrounding area where are knowledge was once previously more limited.

Golden Plover in the Lower Derwent Valley - York © Richard Baines

As technology around remote tracking devices has moved on, Natural England, The Friends of the Lower Derwent Valley and other partners have been supporting the research into the bird’s use of so-called functionally linked land. This is the land that lies outside of nature reserves and protected or designated sites on which the birds depend, either for part of the year or at different times of the 24-hour period.

In order to find out where the birds are using other areas in and around the Lower Derwent Valley the ringing team of staff and volunteers have been catching birds and fitting them with small solar powered GPS tracking tags. These tags, weighing just 3 grams, log fixes of the birds location every 15 minutes, and can store a total of 64,000 15 minute fixes (or just under two years’ worth). Small base stations are located in and around the area, on well known roosting sites or feeding fields as well as other locations where the birds are likely to come into a 1-2 km range in over to download the data to the stations, and from there the data can be downloaded onto laptops and mapped.

Whimbrel tagging © Craig Ralston Natural England

The ringing team have been able to study the internationally important spring roost of Eurasian Whimbrel, which although they roost on the reserve during the night, they have been found to be dependant on a dozen or so fields in the surrounding wider area and outside of the nature reserve boundary. These results have helped to forge a stronger link with the local farmers in these areas to work in partnership and seeking to ensure such important fields are managed favourably and to ensure some sort of long-term protection.

Golden Plover tagging © Craig Ralston Natural England

More recently we have been looking into researching habitat requirements of the 10,000 wintering European Golden Plover that use the site. These birds can be found in mixed flocks with Northern Lapwing, Dunlin and other waders on the Ings (flood meadows) during the day but appear to spread out thinly across a huge number of arable fields around the reserve to feed during the night.

Golden Plover tracking results. Red Star is the tagging site. © Craig Ralston Natural England

Understanding important areas, cropping patterns, how the winter flooding might impact on such nocturnal feeding areas and interchange with other sites such as the Humber are all important questions to answer, especially when faced with ever-changing climatic impacts.

We are delighted and extremely grateful to Yorkshire Coast Nature for their financial support in providing tags for this valuable project, and whilst in the early stages, this has already produced some valuable data (see below).

Craig Ralston

Reserve Manager, Natural England