St Andrews Links Blog

Crowd control

Those of you who visited The Open may have seen the roped off area behind the fifth tee of the Old Course. It was brought to our attention three weeks prior to the Championship that a pair of meadow pipits had built a nest there and were sitting on four small dark brown eggs. The area was initially due to be strimmed for spectator access but the nesting birds meant strimming was obviously no longer an option. The area was instead roped off and signs were placed at 5 metre sections highlighting the reason why.

The birds were often observed from a distance and two weeks prior to The Open the chicks hatched. Both parents returned on a regular basis with beaks full of grubs for the hungry chicks, however, it soon became clear that the growing number of spectators were making it difficult for the parents to make it back and forth to feed their young so a decision was made to divert all traffic away from the area. The marshals on the tee were informed of the nest and they played a great role in diverting spectators away from the nest site. To cut a long story short, towards the end of the tournament, three chicks were often seen either on the footpath or in the unstrimmed rough and I was informed that one chick even tried to make it onto the fifth tee during play on Sunday! A kind marshal helped it back to safety with Mum and Dad keeping a close eye on proceedings.

Elsewhere on the Links, the wildlife camera managed to capture an image of our resident fox again but this time she brought all three cubs. The regularly baited area will no longer be used as we do not want them to become dependent on us for food – we’d rather they caught their own!

The wildlife across the Links was not particularly affected by all the commotion of the past few weeks. The hares simply moved over to the New, Jubilee and Eden courses whereas the birds just carried on flitting through the gorse stands. No stoats or weasels were reported but they are pretty good at hiding when there are humans around!

Words by James Hutchinson, Environmental Officer