Egg-cellent Conservation Project Helps Rare Birds this Easter

As birds begin returning this spring, a search for some very special eggs will soon be underway. The work of Project Godwit will resume next month, after last year’s lockdown saw efforts come to a halt on aspects of the project. 

The first few black-tailed godwits have arrived back in the Fens during the last week, after spending their winter further south in West Africa. As these birds claim territories, find mates and start nesting the team will begin monitoring these precious birds. For a technique known as head-starting, the team will identify pairs that can donate their first clutch of eggs (under license) to be reared and released as part of the project.

There are fewer than 60 pairs of godwits breeding in the UK, and in recent years they have struggled to hatch and raise their chicks in safety. Over three-quarters of the UK population can be found in and around the Nene and Ouse Washes in the Fens, making these wetlands vital to the future of the species. Whilst habitat creation and management is improving these sites for godwits – an extra helping hand is needed to get the population on the path to recovery. 

Thanks to the efforts of the Project Godwit partnership, head-starting is being used to boost the numbers of chicks surviving to fledge to levels 4 times that seen in the wild. Their numbers at the Ouse Washes are still low but have grown significantly since the project began, from just three pairs in 2017 to 17 pairs last year, and pairs are breeding for the first time on newly created wetlands in the Fens. In the region as a whole, numbers have also risen each year since the project began and 2021 could see the largest population since the 1970s.

The use of head-starting at the same time as monitoring, habitat management and trialling other conservation techniques, is giving the species the best chance at a future in the UK. Protecting and improving the quality of wetlands as well as reducing threats for godwits, brings benefits for a range of other wading birds too. 

This spring we are hoping that we will be able to welcome visitors back to WWT Welney to see for themselves how the breeding season progresses, with all of our safety measures in place. 

Project Godwit is a partnership between the RSPB and WWT with major funding from the EU LIFE Nature Programme, the HSBC 150th Anniversary Fund, Natural England, the Montague-Panton Animal Welfare Trust and the National Lottery Heritage Fund, through the Back from the Brink programme. 

Press release from WWT Welney Wetland Centre