By Helen Cromarty, Species on the Edge Project Officer for Orkney, RSPB Scotland
Early this year Species on the Edge Orkney’s first land enhancement project started taking shape at RSPB Scotland’s Rendall Moss nature reserve. Here the Orkney reserves team have been transforming homogenous grassland into a diverse mosaic of pools, providing valuable foraging for waders such as Snipe, Redshank and Oystercatcher, and two of our species on the edge: Curlew and Lapwing.
Why are Orkney’s Whaups and Teeicks in need of our help?
Curlew / Whaup
Whaup is the Orcadian name for Curlew. Whaups are in decline, with the UK population nearly halving since the mid-1900s. While Whaups are still relatively common in Orkney, they face the same threats faced by Curlews around the country: reduction in breeding habitat and an increase in predation.
Lapwing / Teeick
In Orkney, Lapwings are referred to as Teeick or Peewit, based on the sounds they make. Lapwings are found on farmland throughout the UK and have seen large-scale declines since the 1940s due to changes in farming. In Scotland they have declined by 29% since 1987 and in England and Wales they have declined by 80% between 1987 and 1998. Breeding lapwing numbers have fallen over the last 50 years due to drainage of the land and a change in agricultural practices such as the increase in autumn-sown crops and use of chemicals such as fertilisers.
Lapwing is a UK red-listed species. Orkney is fortunate to be one of the few remaining strongholds for the bird in the UK and has one of the highest wintering concentrations of Lapwing in Britain, as well as one of the highest densities of breeding lapwings in spring and summer. In Scotland the Lapwing is truly a species on the edge with strongholds now confined to Shetland, Outer Hebrides and the Orkney Islands.
What is Species on the Edge doing to help these species?
RSPB’s Rendall Moss Reserve in Orkney is made up of several areas of land owned by RSPB. These areas are scattered over a larger area on the west side of Orkney mainland, north of Finstown. RSPB and Species on the Edge are working together to provide vital work for waders on parts of this reserve network. Winter of 2023 saw the first of the planned works take place: creation of a series of scrapes; reprofiling of drainage; grazing management; and the removal of encroaching scrub.
Curlew nest in longer rough grasslands, moorlands and bogs but need shorter areas between these to allow access to feeding areas at edges of scrapes. Lapwing tend to nest in shorter areas of grass on raised areas around or on islands within scrapes with chicks using soft shallow edges of scrapes for easy feeding. Both species need areas of medium-length grass short enough for chicks to access feeding areas but also at a length long enough to hide them from predators too. Cattle can help naturally manage scrape areas if grazing is managed correctly for the waders.
In addition to our work at RSPB’s Rendall Moss Reserve, Species on the Edge is also working with private landowners in the area to connect areas of habitat for waders and bumblebees. This involves offering site visits and written advice to landowners as well as an offer to survey sites and complete works where funding will allow for this. Surveying before and after these works is vital to determining what species are on a site and therefore how a site could be managed to benefit these species. Surveys over a period of years will prove the effectiveness of these works. And we’re delighted to already be seeing a difference! Breeding bird surveys we conducted this summer at a site we conducted habitat work at earlier this year shows increased Lapwing and Redshank compared with last year.
If you are landowner or land manager in Orkney and you are interested in finding out more about how you can be managing your land for biodiversity, please contact our Orkney Project Officer Helen at helen.cromarty@rspb.org.uk.
