Thanks to the amazing efforts of staff and more than 120 volunteers, who have given over 4,000 hours of their time, the Beach Nesting Birds and Plovers in Peril projects in Norfolk continue to see impressive results.
Hoppy, a one-footed Ringed Plover, with its chicks. Credit: @RSPBvideo
These two projects are helping to restore numbers of Red-listed Ringed Plovers. In east Norfolk, at least 24 chicks have fledged, which is an increase of 700% from 2020.
On The Wash, the Plovers in Peril project continues its success with 26 chicks fledged in the breeding season at the time of writing, with fingers crossed for the few remaining chicks that were yet to fledge – that’s a 333% increase since 2021.
Numbers of Ringed Plovers in Norfolk plummeted by 69% since the 1980s, hit by habitat loss, sea-level rise and increased disturbance by human visitors. So RSPB works with projects such as these – now running for 36 years – work to protect nest sites of this Red-Listed species from disturbance. Staff and volunteers have come to recognise characters such as the pair dubbed Fred and Wilma (‘the Flintstones’), which typically incubate an egg-like pebble in north Norfolk, and ‘Hoppy’ who, despite having only one foot, has mated and incubated nests on the east coast over the past three summers.
