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Birds of shingle
Shingle provide important habitat for a number of birds. These can be divided
into three main groups:
- Breeding birds and wintering passerines. These include specialist ground-nesting
species of open habitats such as Oystercatcher; Ringed plover; Kentish plover
and Little ringed plover as well as several passerines nesting in grassland
and scrub
- Colonial breeding seabirds (principally gulls);
- Waterfowl of flooded water-bodies (gravel pits) (Cadbury
& Ausden 2001).
For the ground nesting waders open shingle with sparse vegetation is important
although there are differences between species such as Kentish and Little-ringed
plovers in their preferences. The first of these tends to favour the more open,
seaward ridges with little of no vegetation. The second tolerates areas with
some vegetation. These requirements can lead to the removal of vegetation at
some sites to help restore suitable nesting areas (e.g. Cayeux
sur Mer).
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Guidance: There is the potential for conflict between management
which seeks to retain or restore vegetation and birds nesting on open
shingle where vegetation may restrict nesting activity. Vegetation should
not be removed where it is composed of typical or rare communities
of coastal vegetated shingle.
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References
Cadbury, C. & Ausden, M.
2001.
Birds of coastal shingle and lagoons.
In: Ecology & Geomorphology of Coastal Shingle, eds.Packham, J.R., Randall, R.E., Barnes, R.S.K. & Neal, A.Westbury Academic and Scientific Publishing, 304-319.
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