Late bits

Apologies, to the two three people who might notice, that this blog is ‘late’ this morning – I went out to listen for corncrakes at the Nene  Washes yesterday evening and so was home late – no corncrakes.

In a week when the government made a welcome U-turn on buzzard control (which was even mentioned on Have I Got News For You), and a week when I was proofing my forthcoming book, Fighting for Birds – 25 years in nature conservation, I was amused to see that in my book I write:  The next species to be tarred and feathered may well be the buzzard. Buzzards are, I hope you will allow me to say, slightly dull birds. They are perfect for demonising because they are big (and therefore must be vicious killers), obvious (and therefore people notice them), increasing in numbers back to their previous geographical range (and therefore can be portrayed as undergoing a population explosion of phenomenal and unnatural extent), and eat a wide variety of prey species (being generalist predators) and so can be photographed sitting on top of a pheasant or rare bird to make whatever point you wish to make.

While we are at it, the welcome news that great white egrets are breeding on the Somerset Levels at Shapwick Heath, across the road from the RSPB Ham Wall nature reserve made me think back to when I used to birdwatch there as a boy, and my parents used to buy peat occasionally on our visits,  In Fighting for Birds I write about peat and remember: We would often buy peat very close to what is now the RSPB nature reserve at Ham Wall, a wetland created on the site of old peat workings. The reserve and the surrounding Levels now hold a variety of wetland species that I never dreamed of in my youth – bitterns, little egrets and grey herons, but also little bitterns, cattle egrets, great white egrets and always the chance of purple herons in the future. Our peat purchases helped to create the hole that is now filling up with herons.

Thinking again of buzzards: did you notice the reference in the Independent to David Cameron’s interest in shooting?  Apparently there is a well-known photograph of him as a member of a shooting party.  Was Mr Cameron relieved that Parliament was not sitting and therefore he did not get asked about this at PM’s Question Time?  Presumably it will be ancient history by the time that Parliament resumes.

The suggestion that our PM shoots doesn’t come as a great surprise but it did make me think about what might have been.  In the run-up to the last general election Mr Cameron replaced Peter Ainsworth, a very civilised and nature-friendly shadow secretary of state for environement (who is now the Chairman of the excellent Plantlife) with Nick Herbert.  Mr Herbert had been the long-time PR Director of the British Field Sports  Society which was one of the organisations that morphed into the Countryside Alliance.  So if a small deficit of votes in the general election had not led to the need to fit some LibDems in the Cabinet, and jiggling around of the reduced Conservative headcount, we would now have a shooting-friendly Prime Minister, a shooting friendly Secretary of State for Defra, a shooting-friendly Minister of State at Defra (Jim Paice) and a shooting-friendly Parliamentary Under-Secretary at Defra (Richard Benyon).

And if you read last Saturday’s blog about Glenmazeran here are two snippets for you. The author of The Last Curtsey is on Desert Island Discs today – I wonder whether she will mention bumping off eagles? And here is the link to Richard Benyon’s grouse moor.

I had hoped to make the second visit to my second BBS square today but it is raining hard so it will have to wait.  I did complete my first BBS square on Friday morning.  That morning was sunny and bright but there still weren’t many birds there.  2012 is, arguably, the worst year for birds on this site since I started surveying it in 2005: below average species total, below average total bird count, the equal lowest skylark count ever, the lowest yellowhammer number ever and the first year without yellow wagtail.  I’m struggling to balance that list with some good news but, probably because there was a bit more oilseed rape than usual it was a reed bunting year (some years I see them, some I don’t) and it was an equal highest year for linnets too.

My third daily blog on the RSPB website in the run-up to the Rio+2o conference is about the boost that was given to UK nature conservation after the first Earth Summit in Rio.

And do vote in the new Elizabethans poll for your ‘top’ naturalist.

Fighting for Birds – 25 years in nature conservation will be out in August, maybe in July – watch this space for news of a pre-publication offer.

 

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8 Replies to “Late bits”

  1. Things are much the same on my patch – at the moment I come home after a walk there feeling quite depressed – Swallows Swifts, and Sand Martins all down in numbers, and Sedge Warblers, which I dearly love, pretty well decimated, with only a handful where before there used to be a singing male almost every twenty yards. I’ve had far fewer sightings of Buzzards too – possibly I’m going blind in my old age as the shooters assure us that there are massed ranks of them everywhere, waiting to come down like the Assyrian on the pheasant pen. But curiously I’m having my best ever year for Reed Bunting too. One has even adopted as his singing perch an old christmas tree washed up by the river.

  2. Mark,
    Will the book be out at the Bird Fair and will you a have a pile of them for sale by that ice cream van.

    Great news on the Great White Egret, that area must be starting to equal other more well known areas. I am told there are more booming bittern there than ever before

  3. Yes great news about the GWE they have been there and Ham Wall for perhaps 3 years or so with numbers between one and upto five so nice that they have bred there.It was put on the Somerset bird site that they had bred about two weeks ago and volunteers have guarded the nest site which is sad that such a great success cannot happen without this massive input from volunteers.At the same time nice that it shows we have lots of people who care.We have been fortunate and seen the GWE in the past when visiting and Bitterns now seem quite numerous there.

  4. I read in Simon Barnes’ col in the Times this weekend that Pheasants eat Slow worms [no idea if he is correct of course]. But it prompted me to think what an ‘interesting’ study the diet of Pheasants could be! SB also makes the comment that there would be many more Slow worms if no Pheasants. Interestingly when I lived just 3 miles west of the English border, in Radnorshire, Pheasants were an uncommon sighting – Slow worms [and lizards] were fairly plentiful.

    1. Stella – have heard similar. It would be a good subject for research – maybe worth the 350k that Defra now has. Adders, grass snakes and lizards are eaten by pheasants, I’m told, but does that mean that they make a difference to populations? That is the question. And it is an interesting and important question. I’d love to know the answer. 35+million released pheasants each year!

      1. That number of pheasants surely has to have an impact – particularly when prey species are having a hard time, as this year. It would be equally interesting to compare the abundance of potential pheasant prey species on a pheasant free farm, to that on a shooting farm. Pheasants are undoubtedly eating more than their share of available food. Rather sobering to realise there is approx. a pheasant for every other person in the country!

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