Winter is a very different prospect for a Green Sandpiper that spends the non-breeding season in England, rather than Spain, Portugal or countries in northern Africa. Are British winterers living life ‘on the edge’ and how do they cope? One way is to defend resources within clearly-defined territories.
Life in Hertfordshire
Ken Smith, Mike Reed and Barry Trevis have been studying a colour-ringed population of Green Sandpipers in Hertfordshire (an English county just north of London) since 1983. The focal point of their activities is Lemsford Spring, a Hertfordshire & Middlesex Wildlife Trust nature reserve. The site is a set of disused watercress beds that provide plenty of freshwater shrimp (Gammarus pulex) in shallow lagoons fed by freshwater springs. Over the years they have been able to use their colour-ringed birds to study return rates from year to year, behaviour and local habitat use. Using radio-tags they have…
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