Working Together
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Woke up to early morning sunshine and clear blue skies, a damn fine day to be putting up three new mallard nest tubes i thought! These ones were quite special as they were going on the local RSPB Reserve near Warton, Lancashire. ‘’Giving Nature a Home’’ is the motto of the RSPB. The aim of these ‘off ground’ nest tubes was to give the local mallard ‘’a home’’ to hatch their clutches safely, without the threat of being washed away or predated. The Westmorland Wildfowlers Association had discussed the possibility of donating three mallard nest tubes to the local RSPB reserve in previous biannual meetings with the Morecambe Bay Partnership, the RSPB, Natural England, the National Trust, Cumbria Wildlife Trusts and the wildfowling clubs of Morecambe Bay (MBWA, GDWA, WIWA). We were delighted when we recently heard that we had been given permission to go ahead with the installation of these nest structures. Having spent an hour the previous day re-stuffing the tubes with fresh hay, I loaded up the car up with a sledge hammer, 3 scaffold poles donated by W.W.A. member Dan Corrie and the 3 nest tubes. After being welcomed by the assistant warden Alasdair at the Visitors Centre shrouded in early morning fog, we set of to the chosen wetland, donned our waders and successfully added three new mallard nest tubes to the portfolio of artificial mallard nest sites that are now ‘in situ’ in the environs of the River Kent estuary. The wetland already contained a good population of mallard so fingers crossed they will find these tubes to their liking next Spring. We are very grateful to the local RSPB for allowing us to work with them to install these structures. To find out more about these structures look at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xbMnxha1L7A or http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7RkIo2zx-sw Stotty (WWA Hon Sec)
