Floods wipe out 1,600 nests in disaster for Britain's rarest birds

More than 1,600 pairs of wading birds and ducks have had their nests destroyed by flooding in a wildlife catastrophe in the Cambridgeshire fens.

Nearly 600 pairs of increasingly scarce ground-nesting waders – lapwing, snipe and redshank – have lost eggs or chicks in the flooding on the Ouse Washes, a narrow, 20-mile strip of grassland near Ely which is the best breeding site for waders in lowland England. More than 1,100 pairs of eight species of duck, including 12 pairs of the rare garganey, have similarly had nests washed away.

The Ouse Washes were built as a winter relief channel for fenland flood water in the 17th century, and were traditionally inundated every winter and dried out in spring, leaving damp grassland which was perfect for nesting birds.

But in recent years the flooding has continued through spring and even into summer. A combination of factors is to blame, including growing urbanisation of the upper Ouse catchment area in towns such as Milton Keyes – meaning the natural draining ability of the land is lessened – and heavier summer rainfall.

There are already permanent casualties. Floods in the nesting season have been the main cause for the collapse in the Ouse Washes population of black-tailed godwits, one of the UK's rarest breeding waders. In 1972, there were 65 pairs of this elegant wader breeding; this year there were just three, all of which have lost eggs or chicks. The Washes are now flooded bank to bank, a situation which may be repeated in future summers.

As the site is specially protected under the EU Birds Directive, the Government is obliged by European law to provide alternative habitat in case of permanent damage, and three years ago the then environment minister, Elliot Morley, pledged that the Government would fund the purchase of land for habitat creation outside the Washes, to provide alternative homes for the birds. This is going ahead, but some conservationists think it is not going fast enough to make up for the losses.

This year 150 pairs of snipe, 210 pairs of lapwing and 229 pairs of redshank have had nests destroyed.

The duck casualties are even higher – 523 pairs of mallard, 278 pairs of shoveller, 151 pairs of gadwall, 81 pairs of tufted duck, 26 pairs of pochard, 18 pairs of teal, 15 pairs of wigeon and 12 pairs of garganey, a small duck which migrates to Britain from Africa and is one of our rarest breeding birds.

"It is heart-breaking to see so many birds' nests destroyed in a single incident at what is England's most important lowland site for nesting wading birds," said Grahame Madge, conservation spokesman for the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, which has a reserve on the washes.

"Repeated inundations are going to put increasing strain on the Ouse Washes populations, making the need to create other sites ever more important."

John Orr, environment manager for the Environment Agency, said: "We continue to work with the RSPB and the Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust to search for new land to create a safe habitat for nesting birds, away from flooding."

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