Wednesday 6 July 2011

One Percenters at Beddington Farmlands


Green Sandpiper (Up to 1% of the British wintering population is hosted at Beddington)

The latest British Birds (Vol 104) contains the most recent overwinter population estimates of British Waterbirds with new 1% threshold figures. If an individual site contains 1% or more of a species wintering population then it is of conservation significance. At Beddington there are three species that fall into this category.

Greeen Sandpiper (1% threshold is 9): Upto 11 in the winter of 2007 (last published bird report)
Caspian Gull (1% threshold is 1): At least 4 in the winter months of 2007.
Lesser Black Backed Gull (1% threshold is 1,200): Highest count of 2580 in March 2007.

2 comments:

Nick Tanner said...

interesting stuff Peter, here on the other side of London we regularly get up to three overwintering Common Sandpipers on the Lower Lea, the 1% threshold for this species is 1, so this is good news for a site that is continually threatened with development

regards Nick Tanner

Peter Alfrey said...

Hi Nick,
It's great to have these indicators to 'prove' the value- all helps in conservation.