FENLAND NEWSLETTER for birds News from the RSPB in the for people for ever

In this issue: wetland creation in Lincolnshire

What future for wetlands?

Wildlife highlights Corncrakes – back in . Andy Hay (rspb-images.com) Corncrakes breed at An attempt to re-establish the corn- Fifty-five birds were released in 2003 crake in England has had its first suc- with a further 75 in 2004. The project cess on an RSPB nature reserve in the aims to release 100 young birds a year Fens. for the next three years.

A family party of month-old corncrake There were some tantalising records of chicks was seen on the RSPB’s Nene calling male birds in in Washes reserve, near , 2003 and a sighting of a female on the in August 2004. The reserve has been reintroduction site. The family party of the focus of a project to reintroduce the corncrakes found on 18 August may be corncrake to England. her offspring. This is probably the first The corncrake – the world’s most time corncrakes have nested in threatened bird to breed regularly in Cambridgeshire since 1955.

the UK – started to disappear from the (rspb-images.com) Hay Andy English countryside more than a cen- tury ago, because of the introduction of more mechanised and intensive farm- ing methods.

Articles in this newsletter The Corncrake Project is a collabora- may be reproduced in other tion between the RSPB, the Zoological newsletters, websites and Society of London (ZSL) and English publications after consulting Nature, with additional funding from the editor. the Jack Patson charitable trust. Corn- E-mail: [email protected] crakes reared at ZSL’s Whipsnade Wild Animal Park have been released at the Nene Washes. Captive bred corncrake at Whipsnade Zoo.

Corncrake fact-file • In 2004, the corncrake had a minimum UK population of 1067 calling males, www.rspb.org.uk almost all in the north and west of Scotland, where conservationists are working intensively with crofters and landowners for the bird’s survival. • The corncrake is a summer visitor to Europe. Birds begin nesting after their arrival from sub-Saharan Africa in mid-April and leave again in August and September. Issue 3 March 2005 • The secretive corncrake nests in hay meadows and other grasslands where there is dense vegetation. It nests on the ground among dense vegetation. • The corncrake’s scientific name is Crex crex. This derives from its distinctive two-note call that sounds like the teeth of a comb dragged across a matchbox. What future for Fen wetlands? It’s now more than 40 years since the RSPB first bought land in the Fens at the . I have been here myself for 32 of those

hris Gomersall (rspb-images.com) years. A landmark like this prompts a look backwards at achieve- C ments, but also a look into the crystal ball for likely future changes Cliff Carson for the wildlife and landscape of the Fens. In 1952, a pair of black-tailed godwits was discovered nesting on the Ouse Washes, having been absent as a regular breeding British bird for over 100 years. By 1964, the godwit population had grown to 24 pairs and the RSPB‘s first purchase of washland was finalised in November 1964. During the next 40 years, the RSPB, the Wildlife Trusts and the Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust gradually purchased more than 75 per cent of The Washes, building valuable refuge zones for wintering wildfowl. The increasing incidence of spring and summer flooding on the Ouse Washes means that, without new wetland creation, the prospects for black-tailed godwits and other wading birds are potentially bleak. In future, we would like to have other areas within the Fens for these charismatic birds to breed, free from summer flooding with all the requirements for raising young birds. That vision has its first small step with the Ouse Washes Habitat Creation Pilot Project at Manea, where the RSPB, with support from the Environment Agency, English Nature, Cambridgeshire County Council and Defra, has recreated 44 hectares of damp grassland from arable farmland for the benefit of breeding waders. This is a relatively small example of the biggest change in conservation outlook in recent years, from buying land to protect and manage it to the active re-creation of wetland habitats. Elsewhere in the Fens, the RSPB is creating wetlands at Lakenheath Fen in Suffolk, by the Wash near Boston and at what will be Britain’s biggest reedbed at the Hanson-RSPB wetland project at Needingworth. Other bodies in the Wet Fens Partnership are also active, including the Great Fen project by the Wild- life Trusts/English Nature and wetland creation at by the National Trust. These will be the forerunners of many wetland creation projects in the Fens over the next 40 years, for the benefit of both wildlife and local people. Cliff Carson Senior Site Manager, Ouse Washes

Wetland creation in Lincolnshire (rspb-images.com) Hay Andy

Two exciting wetland creation projects are underway close to the Lincolnshire Wash.

We have recently leased from HM Prison Service 81 hectares (200 acres) of grassland, extending the RSPB’s Freiston Shore nature reserve near Boston to 854 hectares.

With a grant from Defra’s Countryside Stewardship scheme to create The rotary ditcher has created footdrains ditches, a laser-guided rotary ditcher has dug nearly 13,300 metres on the pilot project at the Ouse Washes of ditches to improve wet grassland for breeding wading birds and and Freiston Shore by the Wash. wintering wildfowl. Stewardship funding over ten years will help pay to create disabled access and towards fencing, gates and grazing for Footdrains are shallow ditches across the grassland. grazing that originally took water off the marshes to make them At nearby Frampton , the RSPB has just received £453,500 from more suitable for grazing. Under the conservation management of marshes, the Heritage Lottery Fund to restore land as coastal grazing marsh. they are also valuable for bringing This will become part of an unusual mosaic of freshwater and saline water onto marshes, so long as water habitats on the Wash, establishing new opportunities for people to levels in main ditches are high enough. enjoy a year round wildlife spectacle. Recent wildlife highlights on Fenland nature reserves The small but beautiful marsh carpet moth the important ditch habitats on the reserve. This spe- Perizoma sagittata is rarely seen in the UK. It was cies is a recent colonist in Britain (first records 1999) recorded at Lakenheath Fen in the summer of 2002 and its spread from the continent is being linked to – in areas that only five years before had been carrot climate change. fields – on common meadow-rue, food plant for its caterpillars. In 2004, its increase continued: 84 cater- The Nene Washes flood less regularly than the pillars were counted. Ouse Washes. One of the benefits is that populations of mice and voles can establish themselves. These Pools of water within the establishing reedbed at attract birds of prey including short-eared owls; a Lakenheath Fen, known as meres, attract dragonflies. record 65 were counted in November 2004, a good These provide a good source of food for hobbies, a year for voles. Even more exciting was a white-tailed small bird of prey. In the summer of 2004, 35 hobbies eagle at the Ouse Washes in January 2005.

were seen hunting in the air at one time. C hris Gomersall (rspb-images.com) Gomersall hris

At the Ouse Washes reserve frogbit Hydrocharis morsus-ranae, a small floating aquatic plant, last seen in 1978, was rediscovered in a ditch at the Earith end of the washes in 2003 and elsewhere in 2004. Once quite widespread across the reserve, de- creased water quality was suspected as a cause for its disappearance.

Small red-eyed damselfly Erythromma viridulum was recorded for the first time at the Ouse Washes Short-eared owls have been seen on the Nene in 2004. Seven males and a breeding pair were using Washes in record numbers. Mixed fortunes for Fens breeding birds the RSPB’s Nene Washes nature reserve near Whittlesey, with a record 42 pairs – up from 32 pairs in 2003 – with many young fledg- ing successfully.

Three pairs of bearded tits at the RSPB’s Lakenheath Fen nature reserve, which until 1996 was car- hris Gomersall (rspb-images.com) rot fields, were the first breeding C At Lakenheath Fen, bearded tits have colonised the new reedbeds and sedge warblers are on the up. record for the Suffolk Fens since 1900. RSPB Ouse Washes scored a first an excellent year in 2003. Deep for Cambridgeshire with the coun- flooding in April, caused by heavy The number of breeding marsh ty’s first ever breeding little egrets. rainfall upstream, filled the harriers has tripled in the nine At least two pairs of this small, washes and flooded the birds’ years that the RSPB has been white heron nested in an osier bed nesting grounds. managing the site, from two pairs on the reserve. Little egrets are a in 1995 to six nests this year, from recent colonist from Europe and in Some three-quarters of the UK’s which 14 young were raised. They the UK normally nest close to the black-tailed godwit population joined 638 pairs of reed warblers, coast. nests in Cambridgeshire. At the 164 pairs of sedge warblers and Ouse Washes, 2004 was once 161 pairs of reed buntings. Two The Ouse Washes are the most again a poor year, with just five pairs of golden orioles nested in important site for breeding wad- pairs attempting to nest on the the poplars here last summer. ing birds in lowland England. washes, of which two pairs were About 1,000 pairs of these vulner- at the RSPB reserve and three 'Create the right habitat and the able ground-nesting birds were pairs at the Wildfowl and Wet- birds will come,' says Lakenheath unable to nest due to last year’s lands Trust end of the washes. Fen warden Norman Sills. 'Our spring floods. There were only 150 next aim – to complete the set of nests of waders in 2004 – particu- Fortunately, black-tailed godwits reedbed birds – is to encourage larly disappointing as it follows had a record breeding season at our wintering bitterns to nest.' Andy Hay Andy

Thank you (rspb-images.com) The RSPB’s work in the Fens is only River Delph at Welches Dam on the possible through the generosity of Ouse Washes. The bridge enables the many funders. RSPB to get machinery and livestock on and off the washes. The Heritage Lottery Fund, now 10 years old, supported the purchase The visionary ‘Hanson-RSPB Wetland of the arable land that has been Project’ at Needingworth quarry has transformed into Lakenheath Fen received almost £20,000 from the nature reserve. Habitat management Aggregates Levy Sustainability Fund work here benefits from an interna- to help pay for management work tional project called the Transnational until March 2005. This helps to pay Ecological Network (TEN). Working for the first steps in turning the quarry alongside Norfolk and Suffolk County into the UK’s largest reedbed, to be Grazing is essential for many wetland Councils and partners in the UK, completed in phases over the next nature reserves. Netherlands and Germany, around 25-30 years, following sand and gravel £300,000 has been secured through extraction by Hanson Aggregates. English Nature and the Environment TEN for projects to improve biodiver- Agency help the RSPB’s work in the sity in wetland habitats, including the SITA Environmental Trust is sup- Fens in many ways, including the Waveney and Little Ouse valleys. porting a programme of work called wetland creation at the pilot project Wildlife Guardians across the UK. adjacent to the Ouse Washes, and at Waste Recycling Environmental The Ouse Washes is one of 12 nature Freiston Shore on the Lincolnshire (WREN) is a great friend of Laken- reserves helped by this £1.73 mil- coast. Through Countryside Steward- heath Fen, distributing landfill tax lion scheme through the Landfill Tax ship, Defra supports management for credits from Waste Recycling Limited Credit Scheme. A grant of more than wildlife on our reserves and else- (WRG). Since the land was purchased £120,000 will help pay for improve- where in the Fens. in 1995, WREN has helped pay for ments to paths, information displays habitat creation work. This funding and hides and for grassland man- The RSPB is also very grateful for the is to rise to £1⁄2 million as WREN has agement through a programme of support of RSPB members and local also promised £250,000 for planned grazing with more than 2000 cattle. groups, and anyone we’ve missed visitor facilities. WREN also helped the Scottish and Southern Energy helped from the above! RSPB to fund a new bridge over the with funding for Wildlife Guardians. Conservation in action About 400 local people came to a community open day at Needingworth Quarry, Cambridgeshire at the Hanson-RSPB Wetland Project last August. Activities included reed planting, ) helping to transform the quarry into a nature reserve rich in RSPB

( wildlife. Over the next 30 years, it will become Britain’s biggest reedbed, home to many special wetland birds such as bitterns and marsh harriers. C Carson

RSPB Ouse Washes nature reserve office Welches Dam, Manea, March, Cambridgeshire

PE15 0NF Lincoln Tel: 01354 680212 Other RSPB nature reserves in the Fens:

Nene Washes, Cambridgeshire Boston Lincolnshire Wash reserves Lakenheath Fen, Suffolk Spalding Freiston Shore and Frampton Marsh,

Lincolnshire Norwich Hanson-RSPB Wetland Project at Peterborough Nene Washes Lakenheath Fen Needingworth, Cambridgeshire, Ouse Washes Ely in the early stages of development. Hanson-RSPB Wetland Project RSPB Eastern England regional office Stalham House, 65 Thorpe Road, Norwich, Cambridge NR1 1UD Ipswich Tel: 01603 660066 Registered charity no 207076 Printed by www.gowise.co.uk