Up to four Black-tailed godwit chicks are hatching on the reserve at WWT Welney in Norfolk, an amazing success story after last year’s floods that washed away all the nests.

Back in the 1970s, some 65 pairs of Black-tailed godwits bred on the Ouse Washes alone, but frequent flooding has forced a decline to just 50 pairs across the whole of the UK. WWT Welney is the second best place in the UK for breeding Black-tailed godwits. Three pairs regularly return from their African wintering grounds to breed on the reserve here on the Ouse Washes each summer.

WWT Welney Reserve Manager, Leigh Marshall, said: “It is vital that the breeding pairs, their nests and the newly hatched chicks here remain undisturbed, so we will continue to observe them from a distance.

“These birds make the journey from Africa here every summer and as the numbers are so few, each successful hatch is vital for the stability of the population. After such a disastrous breeding season last summer, when all the nests were washed away in the flooding, it is amazing to see the Black-tailed godwits return to Welney, where the Washes are managed particularly for wading birds, and successfully hatch chicks this year.”

Black-tailed godwits lay up to four eggs at a time, so this nest could yield four chicks. There are two other breeding pairs on the reserve, so further eggs could be observed hatching by the staff over the next few days and weeks.
The expertly managed reserve at WWT Welney supports many nationally threatened wading birds. At the moment there are 31 breeding Avocets on the lagoon, and the reserve holds 114 pairs of breeding Snipe, 147 Lapwing pairs and 62 pairs of Yellow wagtail.

It’s time for a ‘Mad Hatter’s Tea Party’ down at WWT Arundel in Sussex as staff celebrate the first sighting of a rare Hazel Dormouse – that popular character depicted in Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland stories. This find is also a first for WWT, as none of the organisation’s nine wetland wildlife reserves across the UK have the species on site.

In the Alice story, the nocturnal Dormouse is always falling asleep during the scene and sits between the March Hare and the Mad Hatter who use him as a cushion when Alice arrives at the start of the chapter.

Emma Hutchins, Biodiversity Project Manager for WWT, said: “We surveyed for Dormice at WWT Arundel because there was anecdotal reference to them historically in the area, and we were looking to carry out some scrub management work. Aware that the work could impact Dormice we decided to take the precaution of surveying the site.

“Much to our surprise, on the first day of the survey a Dormouse scuttled out of one of the special tubes we had erected. Now we have established a presence, we need to apply for a licence before we can continue to expand the survey.”

The Hazel Dormouse is the only native species of dormouse in Britain. They are protected by law because their numbers and distribution have halved over the last century, and are also a Biodiversity Action Plan priority species for the UK. Dormice are normally found in highly diverse deciduous woodland.

The species is distinctive, but not often seen. They spend most of their active time high off the ground but hibernate on or under the ground from about October unti March or April. The best way to establish Dormouse presence is to look for gnawed hazel huts.

.

Last week (13 May) in Iceland, WWT and a specialist team successfully caught and fitted satellite transmitters to three Light-bellied Brent geese for our Top Goose project, carried out in conjunction with Radio 4′s World On the Move programme and Bristol University.

Nendrum – championed by pupils from Nendrum College in Northern Ireland, Skywalker – championed by pupils from Alftanesskoli school in Iceland, and Geysir – named by World On the Move after the hot springs for which Iceland is so famous, will join our three Greenland white-fronted geese and our three Barnacle geese as we follow their migrations to and from their UK wintering grounds to their summer breeding grounds and back again, whilst measuring the amount of fuel they use to complete them.

Our first Top Goose Barnacle, Donald, has successfully arrived in Svalbard, Norway, to spend the summer – and hopefully breed. He notched up the earliest recorded arrival for a Barnacle goose to Svalbard, arriving on 15 May. Thankfully, he had plenty of fuel to spare, which is useful since it appears that the spring thaw in Svalbard is slower this year.

Two of our Top Goose Greenland white-fronts, GFG and Lightning, have successfully made it to their summer haunt in West Greenland (via the 1.5 mile high Greenland ice cap) – again with plenty of fuel to spare. Here it is hoped they will pair up and breed. We’ll have to wait and see if they return to Scotland in the Autumn with mates and young! Unfortunately, our third Greenland white-fronted Top Goose, Miles, may have perished during migration. WWT stopped receiving data from his transmitter in late April and despite a visit to the place he was last known to have been, there is no sign of Miles. His transmitter may have failed and he may still be alive, so we wait for any sightings of his leg ring over the summer and in the autumn when the white-fronts return.

Back in Iceland, our three Brents will spend the next couple of weeks fattening up for their most arduous leg of the journey, up and over ice cap and on to their summer breeding grounds in arctic Canada. Will they take on enough fuel to complete the journey? Which one will get their first? Which one will be Top Goose?