Photograph by Steve Laycock
The RSPB is celebrating a highly successful year for Bearded Tit on its reserves in 2024. Last year, no fewer than 120 pairs of Bearded Tits nested at the charity’s Blacktoft Sands reserve in East Yorkshire, producing some 500 fledged youngsters – more than double the success rate of previous years. Nationally, Bearded Tit numbers have increased from 400 pairs four decades ago to around 700 pairs in 2021.
World Wetlands Day
The news came as conservation charities recognised World Wetlands Day on 2 February. The RSPB has highlighted the vital role that the UK’s wetland network plays in supporting wildlife, fighting climate change and helping to protect local communities from flooding.
Dedicated conservation efforts to restore and protect wetlands have helped an array of associated birds to recover. As well as Bearded Tit, species such as Eurasian Bittern, Eurasian Spoonbill and Common Crane are all prospering in the UK.
Spoonbill had a particularly spectacular 2024 on RSPB reserves, with 38 pairs fledging at least 74 young. This included the first nesting attempt by the species in Cambridgeshire since the 17th century, with three pairs raising three young.
International importance
Pete Short, RSPB Humber Estuary Reserves Manager, said: “RSPB Blacktoft Sands hosts England’s largest intertidal reedbed and is a fantastic example of why wetlands are so important and why it is urgent that we raise national and global awareness about wetlands in order to reverse their rapid loss and encourage actions to conserve and restore them.
“Watching our Bearded Tits darting around the reedbeds is a special nature spectacle. Carefully managing wetlands is important for some of our rarest species and we’re delighted that our management of the reedbeds is paying off. Wetlands are important to us all and without them we would lose so much.”
The UK is also of high international importance for wintering and passage wildfowl and waders, with RSPB nature reserves providing valuable wetland habitat for an estimated 480,000 waterbirds last winter.