Nesting Curlews and Dunlin were recorded in record numbers at Dove Stone nature reserve in the Peak District this year thanks to blanket bog habitat restoration.
Over the summer, the RSPB recorded 44 pairs of Dunlin at the Saddleworth site, an increase of 37 pairs since 2004 and one pair up on last year’s previous record of 43. There were also 19 pairs of Curlew in a sample survey area compared with 10 in 2004 and 16 in 2015.
The RSPB manages Dove Stone in partnership with landowner United Utilities reckons the increases are thanks to restoration of blanket bog at the site.
Since 2005, United Utilities and the RSPB have been restoring the bog (damaged by air pollution in the past) by covering the bare peat with vegetation, blocking gullies to raise the water table and sowing new sphagnum moss. Earlier this year, the two organisations were awarded the EU Natura 2000 Award for conservation in recognition of this ongoing work.
Dave O’Hara, RSPB site manager at Dove Stone, said: ‘12 years ago Dunlins were on the brink of extinction in the Peak District. By restoring the bog, we’ve seen a steady increase and are now confident they have a future in the area. Our work is also helping us buck the worrying national trend for Curlew. The breeding population of this much-loved bird is has almost halved since the mid 1990s so we are delighted and relieved that they appear to be increasing at Dove Stone.
We hope more breeding waders will make Dove Stone their home in the summer months as we continue to our work to restore the bog with our three-year Spreading the Mosses project in which we are planting over 70,000 handfuls of sphagnum moss across an area the size of 150 football pitches.’.
Ed Lawrance, wildlife warden at United Utilities, added: ‘This is fabulous news and it’s very encouraging for everyone who is involved with the blanket bog recovery work.
Landscape restoration like this takes years to come to fruition. We’re starting to see some indications that the quality of the water running off the moors into the reservoir is improving and that’s only going to get better as we continue our partnership work with the RSPB.
That’s excellent news, not just for the bird life but also for water customers and the many visitors to the area.‘.
A video about the blanket bog recovery work at Dove Stone and the volunteers who are involved can be seen at https://youtu.be/idJnJdJR_nc
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Yet the shooting community assure us that good numbers of waders can only thrive on heavily keepered grouse moors …. It will be interesting to see if the National Trust takes notice and listens to a coalition of 13 local outdoor and environmental groups who want then to make wildlife the priority at Dark Peak rather than just replace the shooting tenant. There’s a petition at http://nomoorshooting.blogspot.co.uk/
This is great news,and it just absolutely shows what can be achieved on our Uplands.On my local patch on walshaw moor, you are lucky to find any Spagnum after all the burning off and drainage that’s going on from the Driven Grouse shooting fraternity !!
John: thanks very much for promoting the ‘nomoorshooting’ petition.
So far we have just 2300 online signatures so we need a lot more!
Please will readers of this blog sign up? Search for ‘nomoorshooting’ and you’ll find a link to the petition on the blog.
The petition applauds the National Trust for evicting the shooting tenant who presided over the ‘man with the gun sitting close to a decoy hen harrier’ incident but goes on to urge the Trust NOT to put another shooting tenant on this 6200 hectare estate of theirs but to restore it for wildlife and for its environmental services potential as has happened so successfully at Dovestones….
It’s a one-off opportunity so we need to apply as much pressure on the NT as we can…and as Mark has said on this blog: the Peak District NP is at the fulcrum of this upland management debate.
Thank you.
Nick
This is a big one for NT. They badly need some HH on their land and trying to play the ‘it’s traditional ‘ card let alone ‘we need the money’ simply won’t wash after the disaster of the previous tenant, which has hardly said much for their judgement.