Rare birds will arrive for wildlife contest (From The Northern Echo)

Rare birds will arrive for wildlife contest

2:15pm Tuesday 9th September 2008 in North-East Business News By John Dean

BUSINESSES from the region continue to perform well in a year-long competition to encourage wildlife on their sites – with an extremely rare bird among those recorded.

The British Trust for Ornithology (BTO) Business Bird Challenge, which is held every two years, has recorded 256 species at more than 100 sites across the country.

Northumbrian Water is in fourth place in the large wetland category, its Scaling Dam Reservoir, near Guisborough, east Cleveland, having recorded 129 species – only 15 short of the leader, a reservoir in Oxfordshire.

BTO spokesman Graham Appleton said one of the most exciting species recorded in the UK so far had been a black stork, which was seen at Scaling Dam.

Black storks are widespread in warmer parts of Europe, including Spain, but are rare visitors to the UK.

Northumbrian Water’s Birtley sewage works, on Tyneside, has also been performing well with 79 species, placing it seventh in the wetland sites and water treatment category.

The company works closely with Durham Bird Club on the site and among Birtley’s attractions are woodland and a meadow created on a field formerly used by contractors as a compound and now targeted at birds including little ringed plovers and oystercatchers.

The site also recorded its first golden oriole and common crossbill.

Among the best-performing sites in the North-East and North Yorkshire in the first half of the competition were those owned by quarry operators Hanson Aggregates and Lafarge Aggregates, in North Yorkshire. Hanson’s Ripon Quarry leads the quarry (under 100 hectares) category with 134 species, followed in third place by Lafarge’s Marfield Quarry, near Masham, with 80. They are split by a Nottinghamshire quarry in second.

Also performing well in the competition is Dry Rigg Quarry, in Horton- in-Ribblesdale, in the Yorkshire Dales, where Lafarge Aggregates has overseen a project to create a good habitat for breeding lapwings and worked to encourage its colony of great crested newts.

And Huntsman Tioxide’s Greetham Works, near Seal Sands, on Teesside, is in fourth in the industry and power company category with 111 species, 28 off the leader, a power station in Kent.

Greetham recorded its first spoonbill.

British Energy’s Hartlepool Power Station has recorded 89 species.

Among sites also recording their first of a species was Hanson Aggregates’ Horton Quarry, in Horton- in-Ribblesdale, in the Yorkshire Dales, with red-legged partridge and green woodpeckers.

Mr Appleton said: “It has been a terrific year, with 256 species so far – only one behind the 2006 final total. The best year was 2000, when 271 species were seen on 87 sites, so this could be a record-breaking year.”

The challenge finishes at the end of the year.