Nest Camera Project Updates

Working for Waders Nest Camera project trial shows the important contribution of land managers - by Dave Parish

Working for Waders launched the Nest Camera project in 2022. This aimed to see if land managers would be willing to look after small trail cameras which were set up to monitor wader nests, so that we might gather valuable information on the success rate of these breeding attempts and what causes them to fail - which is an all too frequent outcome. We hoped that this might help practitioner-stakeholders with an interest in wader conservation to make a direct contribution to our understanding of the problems these birds face, and to have confidence in the findings. This trial has now been running for three years and Working for Waders and BTO have just published a report on the 2022 and 2023 seasons.

Probably the most important findings were that participants engaged well with the project and also produced results comparable to those generated by professional researchers. This is hugely important and confirms that practitioners can make a very valuable contribution to this area of research – an excellent example of citizen science from an important section of society. The level of engagement with the project varied between years in line with the resourcing available that allowed Working for Waders to provide participants with support and encouragement. Not surprising, but an important point for future development of the project. The number of nests monitored as part of the Nest Camera project over the two years covered by the report (87) was lower than that from published studies, but still the predators detected were broadly in line with those studies, which is very encouraging.

Hatching success of waders in the project was relatively high, with an average of 59% of nests in 2022 producing at least one chick, and 85% of nests doing so in 2023. This is great for the waders being studied and probably reflects the hard work on the ground of the participants in those areas.

Of those nests that failed, most were predated. The range of predators recorded was again similar to that reported in research elsewhere (another encouraging finding), with badger, fox, pine marten, hedgehog, raven and sheep all recorded. A surprising finding perhaps was the frequency of sheep predation on eggs, with 30% of predated nests across the two years down to sheep. Other studies have suggested this is more often below 1%. It may be that this is more commonly experienced by waders breeding in Scotland (relative to many studies carried out elsewhere), or it may simply reflect the small number of participants in the Nest Camera project to date: five of the seven incidents of sheep predation in the report occurred on just one farm. Hopefully future monitoring will help elucidate this issue, but it’s certainly important to keep an eye on this without drawing too many short-term conclusions.

It is worth noting that interactions between waders and sheep are usually regarded as negative – and indeed sheep trampling and predation can cause significant problems, but we have to remember that sheep farming systems are also crucial in many cases for providing appropriate habitat for breeding waders. The nuances of sheep management become very important in determining the level of negative impacts they may have on breeding waders (timing of movements, stocking density during nesting periods, etc.).

So, what next for the Nest Camera project? On the back of our experience to date with the trial project, we will press forward with plans to expand the project. We need to raise the appropriate funds for the project and make sure we can supply more cameras and provide the appropriate support for participants, as well as continuing the proper analyses of the data so that we can promptly learn from the findings each year and report to participants and wider audiences. We also hope to reach out to other projects that may also be using trail cameras in the same way, or perhaps encourage like-minded groups to start doing so, all of whom could feed into the central database that BTO maintain to give us a better picture of what breeding waders are experiencing each year over a greater number of sites.

If you have Nest Camera data from this year tucked away somewhere, please share it with us via one of the options available (check out our website: https://www.workingforwaders.com/nest-camera-project), and if you would like to get involved next year, please check out our website or get in touch (https://www.workingforwaders.com/contact), we’d love to hear from you to help this impressive project go from strength to strength.