Returning for Spring

It has been really encouraging to hear from a wide variety of people across Scotland who are all keen to share news of waders returning to their breeding grounds over the last few weeks. A period of comparatively warm, mild weather has allowed birds to settle in to their summer homes on farmland and moorland across the country, and many of the earlier-nesting species are already busy with breeding displays.

Working for Waders has been busy behind the scenes over the last few weeks, organising the new Nest Cameras 2021 project along with a variety of partners across Scotland. We’re aiming to film a number of wader breeding attempts across this spring, deploying automatic nest cameras as part of a piece of work to find out more about wader nesting success. Several farmers and gamekeepers are already signed up and ready to make a start as nests start to appear around the country in the next few weeks, and we are really excited to follow the project’s progress.

It has also been great to hear back from some of the successful Small Grants Fund applicants who have started to carry out management work for waders in a number of sites across the country. Several wader scrapes have been built over the last few weeks, and it’s good to hear news from farmers and land managers who are doing their best for birds like curlews and lapwings. We’d like to develop these stories into case studies as the spring goes on, so stand by for more information on this count!

If you’d like to get in touch with Working for Waders, please feel free to send us an email or a message via one of our social media channels - we always want to hear from people who are involved in wader conservation.