Lapwing Chick by Mike Snelle

Geoff Powell

Kate is WTSWW's placement student and has been working on an interesting aspect of the Lapwing project at Parc Slip. Here's what she had to say:

As lapwings are under serious threat from habitat loss across the UK, the aim of my project is to reduce the pressure in other aspects of their life history. I will be attempting to reduce predation rates on eggs and nests during the breeding season to help boost the number of chicks which hatch. I have created some lapwing sized eggs out of plaster of paris and have painted them to replicate lapwing eggs. The eggs will be pegged into the ground in nest formations around the lapwing breeding sites for predators to investigate. Hopefully, the predators will become bored of the fake lapwing eggs and stop feeding around the breeding sites. The intention is to break the association of lapwing eggs as a source of food. The ‘nests’ will be monitored using camera traps and weekly checks for disturbance

WTSWW would like to say a big thank you to Geoff Powell for kindly making a Lapwing "lookalike" for Parc Slip.  In fact, he has made 40 of them, which will be placed on the reserve to try and encourage Lapwings to use the it when they return next year.

We are also still working towards raising £2000 to build a raft on the Northern Wetland Pond at Parc Slip in the hope that this will provide Lapwing with an even safer nesting site away from ground-dwelling predators.

Thank you so much to those who have donated so far towards this project, we have been overwhelmed with the support and interest in this project from locals, members and the media.

But theres still more to do... So far, with your help, we have raised £350 via our Just Giving page and last weekend WTSWW managed to raise a further £200 at Parc Slip's Christmas Craft Fair.

With over 25% of our target reached we are hopefully that we will be able to raise the rest of the funds needed to create and install the rafts at Parc Slip by January. So if you are able, please help us reach this target and donate towards the Lapwing Project.