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News blog

09.07.2024

The meadow bird breeding season 2024

News from Lower Saxony’s ground-nesting birds and our transmitter birds

In our project areas in Lower Saxony, the Black-tailed Godwit breeding season slowly ends in late June: all known active nests already hatched. Several Godwits already flew to Spain and West Africa, some have initially moved towards Schleswig-Holstein and southern Denmark. In this year’s season, the NLWKN and BIOCON team were able to equip 30 Godwits with transmitters. So far in the project we have already recorded more than 250,000 locations, which provide us with precise information about the migration routes of our feathered proteges. In this year, the satellite transmitter programming has been updated, which will hopefully improve their active time.

In contrast to the Godwits, Lapwings and other meadow birds are still breeding on-site. In the second week of June, Ole Thorup (a species expert from Denmark) contributed to the recording and tagging of Ruffs: five breeding records were possible – four families with chicks were spotted, and in one case breeding was suspected. Two young birds were equipped with transmitters, but both were already predated by Common Kestrels.

At the Dümmer area, a Snipe was recaptured just 70 m from its previous breeding site from last year. The bird was ringed and tagged last year, and the transmitter, which no longer worked, has now been replaced.

This year generally seems to be a good year for the Corncrake in our project areas. There were also positive reports from the EU Special Protection Area V37 Niedersächsische Mittelelbe.


Two birds on a damp meadow, one sitting on the other with its wings outstretched.
Black-tailed Godwits mating in the 2024 breeding season. Photo: C. Marlow/NLWKN
Two birds in a meadow, one sitting on the other with its wings outstretched.
Curlews mating in the 2024 breeding season. Photo: C. Marlow/NLWKN