Life WADERS for real: an update on wetlands and waders in the Avon Valley - BNSS

Event date: 7th May 2019 at: 7.30pm

Speaker: Ryan Burrell (Game & Wildlife Conservation Trust)

The Avon Valley once constituted one of the top eight lowland wet grassland sites in England for breeding waders.  However, numbers of breeding waders in the Avon Valley have decreased dramatically, with declines of 64% in lapwing, 75% in redshank and 97% in snipe recorded from 1982 – 2002. Since spring 2015, the LIFE Waders for Real project has sought to increase the breeding density of key wading birds especially Lapwing through a unique combination of habitat restoration, research to improve our understanding of wading bird ecology and innovative actions that target the seasonal exclusion, monitoring and tracking of predators. Ryan will provide an update on the status of this important population of breeding waders, insights they have gained into predator activity and how their work is helping waders recover. The project seeks to reverse the decline of breeding waders in the river floodplain of national importance.