Since the early 1990s, management to restore breeding wader populations has been focused on habitat restoration and improvement. Large sums of money have been spent on habitat management, but in many cases, there has been little monitoring of its effectiveness. Owing to limited resources for monitoring and difficulties with detection, the typical measures of success, have been the area of habitat restored and counts of pairs of breeding waders.
Habitat quality and predation both have important influences on breeding wader populations and population recovery is unlikely to be achieved without addressing both issues. The level of productivity of Lapwing in the Avon Valley prior to the start of LIFE Waders for Real was not enough for the population to remain stable. Therefore, part of our work has focuses on breeding success. To enable us to gain the best possible understanding of the effect of LIFE Waders for Real the team employ a range of monitoring methods, focused on obtaining important data on wader abundance and productivity.
In addition, our work has the potential to impact a whole range of wetland birds in addition to waders, both breeding and wintering in the Avon Valley. Our team undertake surveys to understand the beneficial impacts we are having on the whole avian community.