An old English quarry becomes a sanctuary for endangered birds

United Kingdom (AFP) .– In the bogs of the English countryside, the once largest gravel and sand quarry in Europe is being transformed into a huge nature reserve that offers a crucial sanctuary for endangered birds.

With their extensive reed beds, the marshy plains outside Cambridge have emerged as an attractive habitat for the inconspicuous bittern, which until 2015 was on the UK’s Red List of Most Threatened Species.

Nowadays, this chubby heron, with a brown plumage that is perfectly camouflaged among the reeds, it has moved to the less critical amber threat level.

“It is truly a demonstration of how by working with partners and with decisive action on a large scale, we can remove species from the red list,” said Chris Hudson, director of the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) in the nature reserve of Ouse Fen, 120 kilometers north of London.

Although the elusive bird did not appear during AFP’s visit on a cool and rainy morning in January, 5% of the birds in the UK nest at Ouse Fen.

Bittern numbers in the reserve now exceed the national population in the mid-1990s, when the RSPB’s list of threatened species was first published, Hudson says, binoculars hanging from his neck.

Insect decline

The latest edition of this list was published in December 2021 with 70 species on the red list, more than double the number in the first report in 1996.

Around 30% of the 245 of the bird species in the British Isles are currently endangered.

New additions to this list include the common bird (of the swallow family) and the swift, migratory birds that fly thousands of kilometers from central and southern Africa each boreal spring to breed in Europe.

Richard Gregory, head of surveillance at the RSPB Center for Scientific Conservation, blames this population decline on changing land use in the UK, Europe and elsewhere, which deprives birds of food and habitat.

“The decline of these birds tells us something about a huge decline in insect biomass, which has been a real concern for conservationists across Europe recently, and is probably a much broader phenomenon,” he said.

“We need more research, but it is a red flag about how the environment is changing around us,” he said.

“But we also know that when you manage habitats, when you protect them and protect birds, they can be restored,” added Gregory, evoking the example of the “magnificent” European eagle, extinct from the British Isles at the beginning of the century.

Thanks to a protection and reintroduction program, this imposing raptor is no longer on the red list, with at least 123 pairs of these animals in the UK.

“Nature will return”

In early January, in the Ouse Fen reserve, you can see the once elusive white herons and marsh harriers, an endangered bird of prey whose population is recovering thanks to decades of preservation efforts.

The mix of reed beds, open water and grasslands is being restored with soil that previously served the largest sand and gravel quarry in Europe. The reserve was opened to the public in 2010 and since then it has received 20,000 annual visitors.

During this entire project, some 28 million tons of gravel and sand have been removed from the earth, leaving holes that are then filled with water and reed beds for the satisfaction of the birds.

“Our job is to recreate the right conditions that bring the bittern back,” Hudson said. This implies “many feeding opportunities for it to get its prey such as fish and eels.”

“When these conditions are met, this will bring the birds back. ‘If we build it, they will come’ is the phrase we use often, ”he added.

Humans modify the landscape by creating pockets of water and planting reeds “and then nature will take care of the rest.” “That’s the key: give nature a chance and it will come back,” he insisted.