Colonisation of UK wetland birds

DesertRhino150

DesertRhino150

Well-Known Member
15+ year member
Thought I would start a thread to celebrate a very successful breeding season for various scarce colonising wetland birds in Britain.

First there was the first spoonbill nest in the north of England at RSPB Fairburn Ings which successfully fledged three chicks:
Spoonbills hatch three chicks at RSPB Fairburn Ings - BBC News

No less than six pairs of black-winged stilts nested this year at five different locations - a UK record: http://www.rspb.org.uk/community/ou...7/06/14/giving-stilts-a-leg-up-in-the-uk.aspx

Cattle egrets had a good year too, with one pair nesting at Burton Mere in Cheshire and five pairs at RSPB Ham Wall in Somerset, with eleven young fledging at the second site:
http://www.rspb.org.uk/community/pl...nt-sightings-at-rspb-ham-wall-14-07-2017.aspx

Somewhere near Westhay Moor NNR, also in Somerset, a pair of black-crowned night herons produced two chicks, the first confirmed breeding record of the species in Britain:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-somerset-40802437

And yesterday news broke that a pair of great egrets have successfully fledged three chicks at Holkham NNR, the first time the species has bred in Norfolk:
https://www.birdguides.com/news/great-egret-breeds-in-norfolk-for-the-first-time/
 
Absolutely incredible how fast these colonisations are occurring. Just need white storks to start breeding again somewhere...
Am I correct in saying the spoonbill & night heron are both former breeding birds in the UK?; anyone know of any research into what has caused their sudden recolonisation?
 
Swampy said:
Absolutely incredible how fast these colonisations are occurring. Just need white storks to start breeding again somewhere...
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From what I can gather, white storks are so site-specific to the areas they were born that they would need to be directly reintroduced. I believe there currently are plans for the reintroduction of both white and black storks to the UK (although the former died out possibly 3,000 years ago).

Swampy said:
Am I correct in saying the spoonbill & night heron are both former breeding birds in the UK?;
Click to expand...

Spoonbills certainly were quite widespread breeding birds - the last known breeding records being in the 1600s in Pembrokeshire and East Anglia. Night herons are possible - there are two fossils of them from Roman and Postmedieval sites and there is an indication they were eaten, although that does not preclude them from being imported.

Swampy said:
anyone know of any research into what has caused their sudden recolonisation?
Click to expand...

If I am understanding the situation correctly, some of the arrivals (particularly the stilts and also the purple swamphen that turned up at Minsmere last year) are the result of prolonged droughts in the Mediterranean. Some of the other birds such as the great and cattle egrets and night heron are probably coming over because of increasingly large colonies on the near-continent (the Lac de Grande-Lieu near Brittany has at least 1,000 pairs, 250 pairs and 160 pairs of cattle egret, night heron and great white egret respectively, the latter despite having only nested there since 1994) overspilling and juveniles wandering to new areas.
 
Pertinax said:
I believe Cattle Egret bred in Devon and Dorset too.
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Cattle Egrets reared I think two young in Dorset this year. I was seeing a small group locally well into the spring, feeding among cattle with a larger number of Little Egrets.
 
It seems that the purple swamphen that turned up in Suffolk and then shifted to Lincolnshire last year may have come not only as a result of wetland drying but also genuine population increases in the Mediterranean. Several were seen in more northern parts of Europe last year, including in Northern France. I read another source that even says swamphens could follow glossy ibises and the southern herons and possibly be a British breeding species within fifty years.

The source is the BOU, which accepted the swamphen as a genuine vagrant rather than an escapee:
Changes to the British List (24 August 17) - British Ornithologists' Union
 
FBBird said:
Cattle Egrets reared I think two young in Dorset this year. I was seeing a small group locally well into the spring, feeding among cattle with a larger number of Little Egrets.
Click to expand...

Eight Cattle Egrets were seen near Arne the other day, including five juveniles( first thought to be Little egrets) so that's probably a fairly local/county breeding too.
 
An update on the black-winged stilts - four pairs successfully fledged thirteen chicks, more than from all nesting attempts between 1983 and 2016. Seven of the fledglings came from RSPB Cliffe Pools in Kent, two from RSPB Ouse Washes in Cambridgeshire and the remaining four from a nest in Norfolk.

Details
 
I have just seen this information regarding the white stork reintroduction to Sussex on the website of the Knepp rewilding project and figured I would post it here.

First, here is a Q and A about the Sussex White Stork Project:
https://static1.squarespace.com/sta...57b082490ee6/1507974673080/White+Stork+QA.pdf

And here is the feasibility report for the project. Interesting to read how many zoos in both the UK and Europe are getting involved. Cotswold Wildlife Park are going to be captive-breeding birds for release alongside rescued birds from Warsaw Zoo; there is also a secondary captive-breeding centre at Exmoor Zoo. It seems the import of white storks to Shorelands Wildlife Gardens is linked to a second reintroduction, unrelated to this Sussex project although they still contributed information for the report. Staff from Walsrode also provided feedback on this report.
https://static1.squarespace.com/sta...eintroduction+Feasibility+Report+Dec+2017.pdf
 
A further update about the white stork reintroduction - according to an article in the BBC Wildlife Magazine, six of the storks that have arrived at the Knepp Estate are now free-flying within the wider area.

An update on Knepp's website is saying that one of these birds (known as Storrington) has flown over to Brittany in France via the Isle of Wight.

White Storks

Also worth noting that the Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust is now also one of the organisations working with the project.
 
Historically speaking, it is likely that the majority of these are recolonisations subsequent to massive losses in range across Western Europe throughout the Middle Ages and early Modern Period - the only definite examples of species which have colonised genuinely-new ground, to my knowledge, are the Cattle Egret and Western Swamphen.

It is worth remembering, after all, that even the Waldrapp was a common breeding resident in Central Europe until some centuries ago*!

* (Although of course, this is not a wetland species per se)
 
If we are considering non-wetland species, it is worth recording that the most successful species colonising the UK have been (almost) entirely new: the fulmar was restricted to Iceland and St Kilda, at the very edge of the UK, until it started to expand its range more than 100 years ago, and the collared dove first bred in the UK in 1955.
 
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How about Whooper swans?

Did they return to the UK after long period of absence or was it genuine colonisation? In other parts of Europe, their expansion south continues slowly but surely, it reached Hungary, Ukraine, Czechia, now Slovakia just announced their first confirmed ducklings.
 
Some very exciting news, coming from a site local to me. The Chigborough Lakes Nature Reserve (Essex), located about ten minutes' drive from my house, have recently announced that a pair of cattle egrets have nested and are due to fledge four chicks. Also seen at the site was a first summer young black-crowned night heron - not sure if it was also born on the reserve or dispersed from the continent.

There are a number of images and films of the birds on the Essex Birdwatching Society's Twitter page posted recently:
EBwS Bird News (@EssexBirdNews) | Twitter
 
Three pairs of white storks are now on eggs at the Knepp Estate, all nesting in oak trees. The pair that attempted to nest last year (a released female and an unringed male from continental Europe) are incubating five eggs. If they do successfully fledge young, they will be the first wild storks to do so in Britain since 1416. Over one hundred birds have now been released across three sites in West Sussex and Surrey as part of the reintroduction project.

More information can be found in the link below:
First wild stork chicks to hatch in UK in centuries poised to emerge
 
Some more updates for the 2020 wetland bird season in the UK:

- Eurasian spoonbills have had their most productive breeding year so far at Holkham in Norfolk, with twenty-eight pairs managing to fledge fifty-six youngsters
Norfolk spoonbill population hits new heights - BirdGuides

- Four pairs of Western cattle egrets also nested at Holkham this year, in a first breeding record for Norfolk; a further five pairs also nested in West Sussex, another first county record
Western Cattle Egret breeds in Norfolk for first time - BirdGuides

- Two pairs of bitterns bred on the Gwent Levels in South Wales this year, possibly for the first time in two hundred years
Bitterns breed in south Wales for first time in 200 years - BirdGuides

- A single pair of black-winged stilts have hatched chicks this year in Somerset; this is the only breeding record from the UK in 2020 and may be the westernmost breeding attempt by the species
Black-winged Stilts breed in Somerset - BirdGuides

- Following a record number of individuals reaching Britain this year, it is thought that the Blyth's reed warbler may become a regularly breeding species in the country; the species is spreading west and in 2014 was removed from the UK rarities list
Unprecedented number of Blyth's Reed Warbler reach Britain - BirdGuides
 
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