RSPB Cumbria Beach Nesting Birds Project – An Introduction

I’m Steph, the RSPB Beach Nesting Bird Project Officer for Cumbria. This project is relatively new, starting in April 2024, and has recently been granted funding for a second season.
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The Cumbrian coast is home to a significant number of shingle beaches, and being less popular as a tourist destination means that there’s plenty of potential nesting habitat for our beach nesting birds. Despite this, outside of reserves, birds are still struggling to fledge enough chicks. Although the beaches do not attract crowds of tourists like at Chesil or Snettisham, they still receive regular footfall throughout the summer and are especially popular for dog walkers. The project’s goal is perfectly summarised by Dave Shackleton, project volunteer: “with its large area of sand and shingle beaches, efforts to increase productivity of threatened beach nesting birds on the Cumbrian coast could contribute significantly to the conservation of Ringed Plovers and Oystercatchers in England”.

​As the potential area is vast, the first step was to work out where best to focus efforts. The beaches from Sellafield to Drigg already have a high density of Ringed Plover pairs and with some community engagement and raising awareness it is hoped that the fledging success for these birds will increase. The first season was not easy, between the poor weather conditions and the difficulty of contacting landowners, the protection measures that went up were minimal, only allowing for 18, A3 signs to be placed along beach access points.

Beach Nesting Bird sign up at Seascale beach by Steph Leow

​After the peak season, I could dedicate my time to communicating with landowners and increasing community support. This out of season work has proven fruitful as I have been given permission to put up fenced “safe nesting zones” for this year’s nesting season, and some locals have shown interest in volunteering for the project. We are also expanding the project this year to include Oystercatchers in our monitoring and protection plans.

More protection measures are in the pipeline alongside plans to boost public engagement. Fingers crossed this summer has better weather and more chicks will fledge this season.