By mid-February, a restless energy began to creep into the wintering grounds of the lapwings, and they slowly started to mobilize. First, Amálka and Oliva moved a little further north within the Iberian Peninsula, then Belinda flew all across France to the German border, and now Kikina and Oliva have already shifted from Spain to France, while Jezinka has begun her eastward journey. An exciting period of return has thus begun. What do you think? Which lapwing will be “home” first? Update: In the time between finishing and publishing this blog (approximately 45 minutes), new GPS positions arrived, revealing that the first of the lapwings (Belinda) has already returned to the Czech Republic!
And while the lapwings in Western Europe are preparing to return to their nesting sites, we haven’t been idle in our own preparations for their comeback. How so? Last Friday, together with colleagues from South Bohemia, we headed to the Českobudějovice Basin. Amid the loud humming of brushcutters and thick clouds of smoke from the burning of last year’s vegetation, we carried out the traditional maintenance of one unique (not only lapwing) nesting site (see Fig. 1). You might wonder why all this commotion is necessary for the protection of a species typical of the agricultural landscape—where similar maintenance is (much more efficiently) performed by tractors or at least by the jaws of pasture-raised ruminants. Today, however, we’re going to share the story of one extraordinary island that might serve as a useful inspiration in the conservation of our mud-loving friends.
Figure 1: a) A detailed view of the overgrown island before management, b) A view of the site before management, c) The mowed island, prepared not only for lapwing nesting, d) A view of the site after management, e) Getting to the island was not easy this year, f) Management work.
Perhaps the surprising beginning of this charming, lapwing-chick–filled story dates back to the 1960s, when the uranium ore processing plant of MAPE Mydlovary was established, including a sprawling 286-hectare complex of uranium tailings. The processing plant’s operation was halted shortly after the revolution, and the only element to survive into subsequent decades was the tailings—sludge laden with radioactivity and heavy metals. In other words, nothing one would consider a win for the surrounding landscape. As Wikipedia promptly reminds us, in a 2007 MF DNES poll searching for the “biggest horror of the South Bohemian Region,” this area took an impressive second place. However, as is often the case, every cloud has a silver lining. That very “second biggest horror” of the South Bohemian Region once also served as one of the first Czech nesting sites for black-winged stilts, pied avocets, or common shelducks. Therefore, when the tailings began to be leveled and removed, ornithologists were anything but delighted.
To get to the heart of the matter, the tailings complex also included several smaller, uranium-free water bodies. On one of these, in 2011, a small island was created at the behest of nature conservation authorities—a modest compensatory habitat for the rare birds in exchange for the vast areas of introduced tailings.
We came across the newly formed (and at that time only sparsely overgrown) island rather by happy accident in 2014, when colleagues discovered a nest of the little ringed plover—the species whose systematic study we were just beginning. Already that year, a lapwing was present on the island (and perhaps even nested there). However, we didn’t pay it much attention, as we already had plenty of lapwing nesting sites elsewhere, and larger ones at that. But when we revisited the island a year later, we found no less than seven lapwing nests—and a nest of the common redshank! Then, yet another year later, the island outdid itself. In the record-breaking year of 2016, on approximately 4,000 m2 of island area, we counted an incredible 16 lapwing nests, two redshank nests, and two nests of little ringed plovers. Not to mention the white wagtail (nesting atypically in a ground burrow) and several waterfowl species that we won’t even get into. Although these numbers have remained unsurpassed since then, the rich community of shorebirds continues to nest on the island to this day (see Fig. 2).
Figure 2: a) Redshank chick, b) Northern lapwing chick, c) Little ringed plover chick, d) Little ringed plover nest, e) Northern lapwing nest
Already in 2016, however, it became apparent that the island was becoming overgrown and might soon cease to be suitable for the water birds. Given the island’s importance for these birds, we couldn’t accept that fate. We thus entered into negotiations with the area’s manager (the company DIAMO) and, with their blessing, began an annual maintenance routine—a tradition that continues to this day. Every early spring, we swim (or break through the icy crust) to the island to carefully cut away everything that has grown over the past year, pile it into large heaps, and, as we dispose of it, kick off the sausage-roasting season. Our efforts have clearly benefited the shorebirds. Although the little ringed plovers have since abandoned the island as a nesting site (we unfortunately failed to maintain a stony beach), lapwings and redshanks continue to nest there in great numbers. Moreover, over time, thanks to DIAMO’s cooperation, a second island has emerged on the site—and who knows, perhaps in the future the potential of the local shorebird colony will increase even further.
Let’s linger a moment on this island refuge for shorebirds and examine in detail the potential that this and other similar sites might have for our feathered friends. From the start, it wasn’t merely the number (or rather, the density) of nests that fascinated us on the island. The key difference we observed compared to other monitored nesting sites was, above all, the high nesting success. For example, in the population we studied in the agricultural landscape, average nesting success was around 40%, with 74% of unsuccessful nests ending up in the jaws of predators. In contrast, on the MAPE island, not a single lapwing nest has been predated (although, unfortunately, a redshank nest has been taken several times). Of course, not all nests here ended in success! When heavy rains occur during the nesting period, the top of the island can become largely flooded, and we have already found several nests washed away. But compared to the risks faced by lapwings nesting in the surrounding fields, the island is truly a very safe haven.
There are basically two reasons why the island proves such a secure refuge. The first is that the Czech lapwing population is predated in the vast majority of cases by mammalian predators—primarily foxes and martens (Brynychová et al., 2020)—which, fortunately, are rather reluctant swimmers. The second reason may be the unprecedented density of nesting water birds, which allows parents to join forces in defending the nesting site against avian predators. One can easily imagine that breaking through an aerial defense composed of some twenty parents guarding an island of less than half a hectare would be a formidable challenge even for seasoned raiders. This aspect likely becomes even more crucial during the chick stage, as some published studies (Teunissen et al., 2008) and our own observations indicate that avian predators are far more involved in chick predation than in nest predation.
The idea that collective defense against aerial predators can be the cornerstone of successful offspring survival is underscored—not only by many geopolitical experiences—but also by a memorable expedition we undertook in 2014 to the wetlands near Lake Baikal. In those vast marshes (see Fig. 3), the clustering of shorebird families with chicks into loosely associated groups for joint defense was strikingly evident. After kilometers of wetlands without a single alarm-calling shorebird, you could, without any noticeable change in the environment, enter an area where, on a relatively small patch of land, dozens of shorebirds would attack every passing crow or gull. Among them, not only lapwings but also Eurasian curlews and several sandpiper species stood out. It can thus be assumed that in areas with high densities of water birds, such clustering is the key to successful reproduction. In today’s landscape, however, due to high predation and a low density of nesting water birds, there are hardly any places where more than a handful of successful families with chicks gather on a small patch of land—less than the legendary saffron hidden in the roots of our grandmothers, so to speak.
Figure 3: Wetlands near Lake Baikal.
That makes the MAPE island all the more precious. Unfortunately, during the chick period, the island begins to exhibit certain shortcomings from the lapwing’s perspective. In the early years, when we were meticulously studying the biology of the water birds at MAPE, it became evident that the chicks on the island grew much more slowly than those observed in the surrounding agricultural landscape. It is hard to say whether this is due to a lower food supply on an otherwise beautifully situated, shallow-water–surrounded island, or whether stress and conflicts arising from such an extremely dense population are to blame. What is certain, however, is that it often happens that the parents lead their chicks away from the island. And because the surrounding areas are not suitable for lapwing chicks, they usually have to be taken quite far into the nearby fields. Understandably, this reduces the concentration of parental defenders (and, consequently, the effectiveness of their defense). Even so, MAPE is probably the only site in the vast surrounding area that, I am convinced, almost annually produces at least a few impressive lapwing fledglings. And if in the future it becomes possible—through appropriate management—to expand the areas adapted for water birds, things could improve even further.
Finally, I cannot resist making a general conclusion. The experiences gained at MAPE may indicate the most effective approach when we artificially create wetland environments for birds. I am, for example, convinced that creating a water body in the shape of a ring surrounding an island is a far greater advantage for birds than constructing several circular ponds. At the same time, there are undoubtedly many locations where simply removing vegetation would suffice to create another lapwing island. If you know of any area that could be similarly modified, it would certainly be worth considering!
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