Tomorrow, wildlife cameraman and natural history presenter Gordon Buchanan will appear at the Holyrood Petitions Committee to ask the Scottish Parliament to support a RSPB campaign formally to adopt the Golden Eagle as Scotland’s national bird.
The campaign calls for the adoption of the Golden Eagle as a new national symbol, alongside the lion rampant, the Saltire and the Scottish thistle.
In a year-long pol,l run by Scottish Natural Heritage and VisitScotland, the Golden Eagle secured an overwhelming 40% of the vote, double that of the red squirrel, which was the second most popular contender (also rans: otter, red deer and harbour seal.
Good luck to Gordon and the RSPB on this one.
In England we should have a dead Hen Harrier as our national bird.
![By Juan Lacruz (Own work) [CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons](https://markavery.info/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/800px-Aquila_Chrysaetos.jpg)
How about a dead duck for england?
Shot, of course!
Mark W – of course.
I’ve thought that in recent times our (Scotland’s) national bird should be the red grouse: Exploited by the wealthy/English (Delete as you see fit), somewhat rotund and inextricably linked with booze.
On a serious note though, anything to promote a sense of pride in our national wildlife is great. I’d have chosen the wildcat, but that wouldn’t be politically very popular as they’d then have to actually get off their backsides and do something to save it before it became extinct.
Agree entirely Donald, the Scottish wildcat is rarer than the Siberian tiger and giant panda, but you wouldn’t know it given the lack of profile in mainstream conservation media output. The reason? It would require the authorities and cat-owning public to take a serious approach and responsibility respectively, to introduced, non-native, free-roaming domestic and feral cats.
I expect the red squirrel will be in the same parlous situation in a few years to come, unless a much more robust strategy for dealing with the introduced, non-native, grey squirrel is adopted.
As to national birds, I would have favoured the Scottish crossbill, capercaillie, arctic skua, crested tit and red grouse in that order.
For England, the cheeky Cockney urban house sparrow would get my vote.