The Lincolnshire Bird Club

Drove past Rosper Pools, Rosper Rd near Killingholme today. Couldn't stop because lay-by was closed due to construction work and too many HGV's around.
A quick passing look at the Pools revealed most of the reeds and bank side vegetation has been removed, also quite a high water level.
Does anyone know what's going on?

The Drainage Board, who manage the site, have just done thousands of ponds of digger work to clear out reed litter, create deeper and shallower areas, and secure the future of a site that was in decline due to succession

Thank you, Simon for the update.
Really pleased the site is being managed and improved.
I haven't visited the site this year due to ill health, but years ago I worked in the area and found the Pools to be a little gem, especially during autumn and winter, despite the continuing industrialisation.

Thanks

The plan is to create a habitat for avocet-breeding and a winter wader roost.

The work has been funded by ABP.

Lionel Grooby, the area's former Lincolnshire Wildlife Trust warden and vice-chairman of the drainage board, is very positive about the project.

He is confident that avocets will be nesting as soon as spring 2017.

As I recall, a pratincole was a visitor to the site a few years ago.

Does the Lincolnshire Wildlife Trust still have an interest in this area?
It was once an LWT reserve.

Roy

I am pretty certain that the LWT has relinquished all practical interest, and North East Lindsey Drainage Board is entirely in charge.

It had a budget for the "reprofiling" works at the Rosper Road pools of about £12,000, but the cost of the project (carried out by Bicker Contractors) is reckoned to have been about £9,000.

I understand that some of the scrub habitat that might have been welcoming for whitethroats and other migrants has been (or will be) removed for fear that it could provide a home for magpies/ carrion crows which would probably predate avocet eggs/chicks.

The drainage board is pretty clued up on conservation matters and finds locations for three new barn owl boxes per year.

Incidentally, at its Far Ings Drain (which is classed as a SSI) , it is having problems with the floating weed, Azolla, which it is hoping to tackle next spring by introducing a beetle which feeds exclusively on the plant. This will be a joint project with the LWT.

I don't mean to be negative,but do we really need another site for Avocets,with huge numbers on the upper Humber?.

This site was very good for Odonata once upon a time,but it became so overgrown,i could no longer access it.

Rare birds over the years have included the afore mentioned Collared Pratincole and i was lucky enough to find a 2nd calender year Purple Heron there in 2007 while conducting a Dragonfly survey.


Regards,


Steve.

_________________
http://www.brachytron.blogspot.co.uk

http://www.LincolnshireOdes.blogspot.com

http://www.flickr.com/photos/routy

I wonder what the beetles will be eating after all the azola weed has gone in the Far Ings ditch?

In response to the question about whether we need more sites for avocet, the answer is yes!

Numbers in the upper Humber are certainly good but the future for them as breeders (rather than passage) is not as secure as it may appear. Read's Island - the main avocet stronghold - is being badly eroded along the northern shore to the point where the lagoons aren't functioning as they should. This has forced a lot of the avocets out on to the surrounding intertidal, leaving them more exposed to predation, weather, tides, etc. Similarly, the vegetation on Whitton Island, another decent breeding site, is starting to develop in ways that isn't ideal for avocets (or any other breeding waders). As managers of these sites, this is something that we (RSPB) are looking at tackling.

That aside, the situation in the upper Humber is not ideal anyway. Although avocets nest colonially the numbers and densities we see in the upper Humber are more a reflection of the historic lack of good breeding habitat around the Estuary. Avocets are typical of early successional stage breeders. They do great in early years on new habitat but as their colonies grow they tend to get badly hit by predation and other density dependent factors, which drive down the productivity of a colony. We're starting to see this now on a lot of the upper Humber. So what we really need on the Humber is more dynamic and smaller avocet breeding sites. This will allow the population to respond by moving themselves around and staying ahead of the pressures. It also obviously reduces the impacts on the population of failure of any one colony. While the estuary's islands are currently key to the breeding population, having more terrestrial sites also gives those of us who manage avocet breeding sites more flexibility about how we manage them in a given year, so we've got more chance of having good, dynamic wetlands spread round the Estuary.

With avocets being one of the Humber's internationally important species, those of us who manage parts of the Estuary have legal duties to make sure the population is maintained. A big part of this is thinking about the future for the species, not just their current numbers. Combined with the major benefits for wintering waders and wildfowl (both roosting and feeding) that tend to go hand in hand with avocet breeding habitat creation/management, these types of project should be great for the Estuary's wildlife throughout the year. It's fantastic to see ABP and the IDB taking a lead on this at Rosper Road.

Richard
RSPB Humber Conservation Officer

Superb reply Richard