Nest Cameras 2023 - the story so far!

It’s been a busy few weeks for the Working for Waders nest camera project. This is the third year we’ve been running cameras to monitor wader breeding productivity across Scotland, and the results have so far helped us to build a really useful picture of the threats and challenges which face birds like lapwings and curlews. We’ve uncovered all sorts of information about predators around wader nests, and we’ve also learnt more about the impact of livestock and agricultural operations on ground nesting birds.

The project began again in March, and many cameras are still running at wader nests across the country in the last week of May. It’s still too early to give any indication of how the birds are doing, but we’ve seen a mixed bag of predation, disturbance and success. Oystercatchers near Girvan were flooded out by rising water levels, and another pair which nests on a roundabout in Lanarkshire had all their chicks run over by cars. Nesting near roads is a high risk strategy which can sometimes pay off, but this is the first record we have of an entire brood being wiped out by traffic. Elsewhere, crows, foxes and badgers were caught on camera stealing eggs, but most nests seem to have been fairly successful. Given the warm, dry weather we’re currently having, there’s some room for optimism that young birds will survive to fledge - although some areas could soon be too dry to support wet areas and the insects required by growing chicks.

The main observation from 2023 relates to a strange and unpredictable movement of birds which took place in early spring. From the very start of this year’s project, it was clear that birds were not behaving as normal - in particular, lapwings were absent from many areas where their numbers have always been strong. They seemed to abandon many good habitats, and while some birds might have moved into new areas, the absence of many birds cannot really be explained. There have been theories about the impact of bird ‘flu or climate change, but there’s no hard evidence to support these ideas and we simply cannot be sure what has happened. At the same time, many pairs of curlews simply vanished this year - and that’s harder to explain because curlews generally select one breeding site and then stick with it for the duration of their lives. It’s possible that we’re seeing a very sharp decline in wader numbers across Scotland this year, but that doesn’t explain why several farms and estates are currently reporting “business as usual”.

Given the birds’ unpredictable movements, the camera project has been more challenging than normal this year. People who have run nest cameras in the past have found themselves without any birds to monitor, and we’ve been contacted by people who want to run cameras on birds they’ve never had before. We won’t be able to get a clear view on facts and figures until later in the season - but even when you include the difficulties of the current spring, it’s clear that this project is a useful way to understand what’s happening on the ground.

If you’ve been running nest cameras at wader nests this year, please let us know - the more data we can gather on wader nesting attempts, the more we’re able to understand the challenges they face.