Lapwing boost in Northern Ireland

08/12/2009 14:00:15 Lapwings on RSPB's Portmore Lough
November 2009. This summer five pairs of lapwings successfully saw their broods take flight on RSPB's Portmore Lough reserve in Aghalee. Their heart warming journey from balls of fluff to airborne acrobats was made possible in part through habitat management supported by the Alpha Programme who provided £48,000 funding towards work needed on the reserve.

10 chicks reared successfully
"For 12 years we worked hard to get the meadows in the condition that lapwing need to breed. In the past three years breeding lapwing have responded and numbers have increased but breeding success has been low. This year we had great breeding success with every pair successfully rearing two young," explained John Scovell, RSPB Warden Portmore Lough. "With the help of additional funding, we were able to complete large projects across a greater area and bring more of the meadows into the condition that breeding lapwing prefer. We are hoping more birds come back and do the same next year."

Very little suitable habitat in Northern Ireland
With their flamboyant crest, poetic flight and distinctive call, lapwings are the charismatic bird of farmland. Once a common sight in the UK and Ireland, lapwing numbers crashed by more than 70 per cent over the last 45 years. Changes to farming practises have altered their habitat so drastically that they now only breed in very few places across Northern Ireland. Portmore Lough is now one of them.

The Alpha Programme is managed by Groundwork NI and uses landfill tax credits from Alpha Resource Management's operations at Mullaghglass landfill site to support community amenity and biodiversity projects in the Belfast and Greater Lisburn areas.

"The Alpha Programme has always championed the importance of biodiversity," said Lyle Andrews, Alpha Resources Management and Steering Group member. "It is an extremely satisfying feeling when we know that the money has been so effective."

Portmore Lough is used by the local community and visitors from further a field as the ideal place to ‘get away from it all'. Described as a ‘tranquil wildlife haven', it now has a new title - an ‘oasis for lapwings'.