If you want an example of landscape-scale nature conservation then look at the maps for Red Kite – or in many cases, just look out of the window and see a Red Kite! From the first breeding Atlas to this one the Red Kite has ceased to be a solely Welsh bird in Britain and Ireland, and is now found, thanks to reintroduction projects, in England, Scotland, Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland too. And the maps, particularly the abundance maps (both winter and summer) allow one to pick out the reintroduction areas which have led to this resurgence. If there were another Atlas, in 20 years time, the map should be full and it would be difficult to remember that Red Kites were once given shelter in Wales because the rest of Britain and Ireland wasn’t quite ready for them. This is a bird of the wider countryside once more.
We shouldn’t forget, either, the spread of the Avocet over the years, which still continues. From being restricted to East Anglia it has spread to Kent, the south coast, Wales and the northwest as an established breeding bird. Its spread has depended on the provision of safe and productive nesting grounds through nature reserves and wildlife designations.
The fact that the Stone Curlew has as many occupied squares as it does is down to collaborative efforts between nature conservationists and dedicated farmers. We are never going to see Stone Curlews living everywhere, but to have maintained their range, given all the threats they face from changes in farming practice, provides a beacon of hope for other farmland birds.
How about the corncrake? Lost from much of Ireland and Wales but now spreading, thanks to agri-environment schemes and nature reserves in northwest Scotland. And there are those four dots in Cambridgeshire thanks to a reintroduction project there.
The Great Bustard is on the map! The reintroduction project on Salisbury Plain is still in its early days but the signs are fairly encouraging. It’s fascinating to see how widely the birds range in winter and let’s hope that means that they have plenty of options for a small protected breeding population to grow over time.
Sparrowhawks have completed their recovery from the impacts of agricultural pesticides. As the birds continued to increase in East Anglia, the Atlas reveals that there were drops in abundance in many other parts of the country. We are probably not going to be overrun by Sparrowhawks.
The spread of Ravens and Buzzards from west to east is spectacular. Once Larsen traps provided a legal alternative to illegal poisoning then these species were allowed to spread into lowland areas. Changing attitudes of gamekeepers and maintaining the pressure on the unacceptability of illegal poisoning will also have played a part in this recovery.
The Atlas tells the story of conservation successes as well as species declines. In some cases, it is an achievement merely to have maintained the populations of threatened species – keeping the same number of dots on the map sometimes required an awful lot of effort! In others, with Red Kites as a prime example, the distributions of threatened species have been transformed in a spectacular way.
All of the tools in the conservation toolkit have been deployed for different species – site protection, reserve management, protective legislation, political advocacy to effect land use change, fighting wildlife crime, working with receptive farmers, foresters and developers etc etc. All are important and all have changed the numbers and distribution of dots in this Atlas. But when you are looking at maps then one of the tools stands out very clearly – reintroductions can make a huge difference, quickly, to a species range. Many of the successful examples concern raptors – White-tailed Eagle, Red Kite, Golden Eagle (in Ireland) and Osprey (at Rutland Water) but there is a growing number of other examples such as Great Bustard, Corncrakes, Cranes and Cirl Buntings which have put dots on the map which otherwise would not have been there. Let’s hope these projects, and others, lay the foundations for future maps to show similar resurgences of populations.
Let me end by telling you a story. I was coming home after midnight one night last week after giving a talk. As I neared my home in east Northamptonshire a mammal ran across the road. It might have been a ferret but it looked like a Polecat to me. I’ve seen one squashed on the road in the area before but never a live one – and this one was certainly alive. Unlike the Red Kites, Buzzards and Ravens which I now see in the Northamptonshire skies very regularly, the Otters and Polecats which have also returned are almost invisible – I see them, or traces of them, rarely. but they are back too.
Mammals are rather good at being sneaky whereas birds are a bit more brazen about being present (except, perhaps for species such as Goshawk and Honey Buzzard). I’m glad that the mammals are sneaking back as well as the raptors. Publicity on wildlife crime, raptor reintroductions and tagging of vulnerable raptor species have made it easier for mammals that are unpopular with gamekeepers to return too. A focus on reducing illegal persecution and the use of poisons helps many species.
I’d love to see the map of Polecat distribution in the same detail as the map of Raven. How similar do they look? Did Polecats, rather sneakily, outrun Ravens?
Polecats have enjoyed the success of the rabbit which is yet another species set to expand due to global warming! But rabbits have had several bad years due to global cooling up north and so have the records of Polecat in Cumbria. Less dead animals on the road seem to suggest the decline is present. Not one Buzzard bred this year in our valley due to the lack of rabbits and voles and this was a common feature again up north.
John – very interesting. Thank you.
Since ferrets appear to have been introduced by the Normans after rabbits were introduced they will have a different DNA, methinks there is a Phd project here to look at these roadkill and see how much interbreeding there has been.
I have seen white ferrets bumbling the roads of Suffolk and Polecat ferrets (I assume) or can I count a tick for polecats for these as they look just like the id in the book! In my young days I kept beautiful Polecat ferrets which looked just like the picture on the mammal society website or so close as my farther sued to say “a blind man on a galloping horse would not tell the difference” or would that be “a birdwatcher in a speeding car on a dark night”?
I think the Atlas is wonderful at showing us all sorts of things that will take sometime to absorb. The increase in Red Kite is in part a testament to the resilience of the Welsh birds but also to the RSPB and NE staff involved in the introductions to the rest of the UK. But it is not all good for the kite , marvelous though we think it to be. Populations here in the north are constrained in North Yorkshire almost certainly by poison on the edge of the grouse moor areas and indeed birds have lost ground there recently, the Northumberland/Durham birds seem similarly constrained. When we look at the Black Isle releases compared to those in the Chilterns ( same time frame, same number of birds) it gives us a very clear illustration of what the criminals in the game lobby are doing to our raptorial bird populations. We need to be vociferous about this! We’ve already seen what some in the game lobby think of the increase in Buzzard numbers and distribution— licence applications to control, what chance a recovery of Hen Harrier numbers or an improvement in Eagle numbers in the east or Peregrine numbers successfully breeding in the Pennine chain or that WTEs might become resident in northern England again without change?
Polecat and Polecat-ferret an interesting conundrum as Polecat has undoubtedly spread, even here, it has met with a feral ferret population and they have become one and the same, in the long term I suspect that Polecat genes will dominate. Interestingly one pheasant keeper commented that as nobody is really sure which is which he can continue to trap them occasionally without fear of the law, and he is one of the good guys!
Paul – it will be ‘interesting’ to see whether the spread of the Red Kite eventually fills the country except for holes in distribution coinciding with grouse moors. We’ll see.
Polecats and ferrets and hybrids are not easy to tell apart glimpsed from a car, but in the hand and in the trap there is no excuse for not being able to tell them apart.
Much work has been done by Johnny Birks and Andrew Kitchener and the Vincent Wildlife Trust on both their ID and their distribution. Indeed, several publications have been produced on the subjects.
Try reading: Birks, J.D.S. & Kitchener, A.C. (1999). The distribution and status of the polecat Mustela putorius in Britain in the 1990s.
Or for a comprehensive ID guide try:
http://www.vwt.org.uk/docs/polecat/polecats-and-ferrets-how-to-tell-them-apart.pdf
for the most up to date distribution maps and other info and links the VWT is the place to go:
http://www.vwt.org.uk/species/polecat
Thanks for making your blog a bit more mammaly, there shold be plenty of data in those links for you to write a brilliant blog on who got here first, the kite or the polecat…
Mark,
Thank you for mentioning your polecat sighting and stimulating this interesting discussion. My Atlas has just arrived, so I may be busy for a few days/ weeks.
Re/introductions as part of conservation is something I do struggle with. We know about the problems we have had with mink, grey squirrel, ruddy duck and various plant species but we don’t know about the problems that might be around the corner as a result of deliberate introductions that are happening now. Why was the ruddy duck a problem whilst mandarin apparently isn’t; why are we controlling Canada geese in places whilst we don’t do the same for greylag (or do we).
Why am I on balance in favour of the crane project but on balance not in favour of the great bustard project. That one is purely personal but how we can really be sure that one project is worth more than another.
As for mammals. We have an increase in Polecat and presumably someone like the Vincent Trust can tell the difference between these and polecat/ferrets. We know that the purety of wild cats is being reduced by cross breeding, could it be the case with polecats.
Deer have quietly increased until we appear to need a culling programme. I would be happy to stick some lynx out there to sort that out but would we know what the effect of that would be in 20 years.
Dots on the map are nice but the concept of reintroductions does give me a bit of headache. I am glad such decisions are taken by someone else on my behalf.
I wonder when I’ll start to see Red Kites regularly on our farm here on the South Staffs/Shropshire border. As a kid 24 years ago I didn’t believe our farm worker when he said he’d seen a buzzard soaring over the farm. Now they are seen every day with my record being 30 individuals on one field. This eastward spread from Wales was soon followed by the Raven. Again It took a bit to convince myself that I had actually heard one, as I thought they were shy birds from the deepest welsh valleys. It was our farm worker who again spotted the first Red Kite over the farm. I didn’t believe him until I saw one myself, but to date that is my only sighting. The Welsh Kites are definitely spreading this way across Shropshire, but breeding pairs are only establishing very slowly, and I wonder if the rapidly expanding introduced populations in the Chilterns and elsewhere will get here before them.
Andy – the race is on! Sounds like you ought to pay more attention to what your farm worker tells you! 😉
Hi Mark
Interesting comments about polecats. A couple of years ago I found a live one in an empty storm tank on one of Anglian Water’s sewage works at Weston -on the -Welland in south Leicestershire. After taking some photos I let it go, but it looked pretty much like a pure bred animal to me.
Thanks for an uplifting article. I’m especially pleased that Buzzards and now Ravens are spreading back to the east as it gives me hope other species may recover rapidly as well.
As for polecats, I have seen numerous roadkill showing no signs of ferrety features in Herts, Beds and Cambs but never a live one. I am envious of your live sighting but happy for you.
A week ago, I saw a roadkill polecat in north Nottinghamshire (near Retford) again showing no ferrety features, so perhaps the spread has reached this far.
Rob – very interesting thanks.