The Northumberland coast is home to internationally important numbers of birds. However, in recent years a marked increase coastal recreation and climate change have taken a significant toll – precious habitats are diminishing and many species now classified as ‘endangered’.
Lindisfarne National Nature Reserve is receiving additional support from WADER to help them reduce disturbance and restore the natural balance.
WADER is supporting the LNNR team by:
Funding an extra full-time wildlife warden and four seasonal wardens for the summer breeding periods. The team will protect and monitor refuges and actively engage with visitors to raise greater awareness of bird populations and support positive behavioural change, particularly around the control of dogs. They will also develop additional seasonal refuges both within the LNNR and at other sites along the Northumberland Coast.
Collaborating on novel awareness-raising initiatives to highlight the importance and vulnerability of the wildlife and encourage more responsible behaviour by visitors – including the production of a new free booklet Wild & Wonderful – A guide to the birds of the Northumberland Coast, a new mobile visitor centre, monolith information points and improved signage.
Undertaking further research around shorebird activity, the impacts of disturbance, site carrying capacity and pressure points, so future management can be better targeted.
View Research
View Foreshore Fencing
Canvassing for a new byelaw to help reduce disturbance by visitors – this will include reviewing (and possibly seeking amendments to) existing rules, assessing carrying capacities, and ultimately applying for the new rule/set of rules.
Since WADER began in Autumn 2021, Ringed Plover numbers have increased by 28%. With extra staff on board, the LNNR team have been able to create and manage an additional 20ha of spring and summer refuges for shorebirds, more closely protect and monitor them during breeding time and increase efforts to raise public awareness.
This year the shorebirds of Northumberland have faced one of their most challenging breeding seasons yet – since last Autumn the coastline has been battered by unseasonably high levels of rainfall and some of the strongest and most persistent winds and highest tides ever witnessed by the Reserve team. Many of the shorebirds, already exhausted from their epic migration, have struggled to establish their usual nests. This has potentially had a huge impact on breeding success and survival rates.
The staff and volunteers have intensified their efforts to support breeding, especially in areas known to have the largest populations of breeding Ringed Plover and Little Terns. In particular, they have built up sandbanks using brash vegetation (driftwood and windblown shrubs and branches) to create areas of refuge and raise nesting areas above the tideline.
Over the Spring and Summer, staff and volunteers also hit the road in the WADER mobile visitor centre to run activities and workshops, distribute the new ‘Wild & Wonderful’ guide and be on hand to help visitors spot the amazing wildlife and understand how they can help care for it.
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