This is a Buzzard, just a Buzzard. The Buzzard is in some ways the least exciting of our birds of prey being less dashing than any of our falcons or Sparrowhawk, and less exciting than eagles, harriers, kites etc. But it’s a nice bird, circling around on thermals and looking for carrion or a range of prey such as rabbits and voles to eat. they take quite a few corvids chicks from their nests too – the gamekeepers of the air? In the autumn you can see lots of them in ploughed fields presumably viciously attacking earthworms. I see them over the garden here in Northants frequently these days. I remember being in Spain a few years ago with Ruth Miller and a Spanish birding guide who told us they looked like cocktail shakers perched by the side of the road and those few words from Andalusia have stayed with me all this time.
Just a Buzzard, but Buzzards are nice.
Not everyone likes Buzzards and it seems that there is a gamekeeper in the Yorkshire Dales National Park, with access to a captive Eagle Owl, who was filmed during lockdown last year using his tethered Eagle Owl out on a grouse moor to attract in Buzzards and shoot them – two were seen being shot and another was missed. See the (rather awful) video here:
Well done the RSPB, although this is yet another filmed persecution incident for which no-one has been prosecuted. Well done the police, we believe you are doing your best. But for how long will this go on? It is rampant criminality in plain view of those with a job to protect wildlife and yet nothing is happening south of the border to address wildlife crime like this.
It’s clear from the video above what the RSPB and the police think.
The Yorkshire Dales National Park issued a strong rebuke, click here, but the criminal elements of grouse shooting are impervious to those strong words, it seems.
The Northern England Raptor Forum, whose members were staying at home in lockdown while these Buzzards were gunned down said this – click here.
The Moorland Association hardly says anything these days and haven’t said anything about this incident.
BASC don’t appear to think it is worthy of comment.
The National Gamekeepers Association is silent too.
Illegal killing of raptors on grouse moors is so commonplace that it doesn’t make the news, despite being criminal. And the authorities whose job it is to fix this, simply haven’t.
We mustn’t let our anger about it diminish at all. Where crime is so integral to a worthless pointless hobby, the best way to deal with the crime wave is simply to ban the worthless hobby. That gamekeeper may still be free, but will have brought the end of driven grouse shooting a little bit closer for everyone.
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Interesting that the estate hasn’t been named. Why not, given that there is no dispute over what took place?
“Well done the police, we believe you are doing your best”
What is this “we” business? They are an absolute shower of ess aitch one tee. If this is their best then they ought to resign. If they policed gamekeepers with a tenth of the effort they spend stop-searching black kids, or piling into peaceful vigils, then there wouldn’t be a ‘keeper left in the land up to highjinks.
You clearly have no idea about the efforts NYP are going to, have gone to and no doubt will go to in an effort to prosecute these criminals.
This was in an area with two moors both managed by agents for foreign absentee owners why have not the “zero tolerance” shooting organisations and pressure groups who must know where this happened far better than we do expelled these agents from their ranks and from any positions in which they represent those organisations elsewhere. Without that the zero tolerance these organisations profess is utterly worthless and meaningless, as we all thought.
Go on moorland Association surprise us!
Very well done RSPB. I do hope the police have enough evidence to bring a prosecution. Those who love our wildlife have to keep up the fight to eradicate driven grouse shooting (DGS) and all the very nasty and illegal practices that many of the people associated with DGS practice like this despicable gamekeeper.
. It is not easy though when this rotten Westminster Government is so dedicated to supporting DGS and refuses to take even the most minor of actions to make it easier to bring the perpetrators of these wildlife crimes to justice.
No doubt this Westminster Government would argue that DGS and all its horrible practices brings in a lot of money but so did children in the nineteenth century working long hours in factories from the age of about five. Perhaps some would like to bring this practice back for the extra money it could make.
I wonder what the dislike fairies dislike about this post? Probably the few bad apples bringing this wholesome and vital sport into disrepute again I imagine. I think the most surprising fact to come out of this story is the number of captive eagle owls that must be available for gamekeepers to use and abuse. The police know what gamekeepers work the estate in question and they know they had an eagle owl but neither bits of evidence were of any use to them. Walk around that estate with a long lens camera and see how long it takes for you to be approached then work out if the same estate wouldn’t notice a stranger riding a quad bike around with a shotgun and large unregistered owl. Maybe it’s time to fit all gamekeepers with mandatory gps trackers and find those bad apples once and for all.
I think we would discover that nearly the whole barrel of apples is rotten, of those few keepers that don’t indulge in crime one wonders how many of them would if instructed to.
My thoughts too.
How many captive Eagle Owls are there in that area?
Can anyone buy and keep an Eagle Owl or do they come under “Dangerous Wild animal legislation”
No they are quite easy and last time I looked relatively cheap to buy, they may even claim them as a work expense, like dog food and ammunition.
Like Ian I fail to understand why this estate has not been named. I hope there is a very good reason and it’s not a case of the RSPB retreating into timidity.
The RSPB, and Police, are not timid in releasing estate names when it suits them , no matter how high profile , it is the
inconsistency in this that i find frustrating.
In Derbyshire we have seen the extremes of this in recent years, very high profile names released within a matter of weeks ( possibly hoping for a big name prosecution ), followed by a two year ban on published opinions that differed from the line of investigation – that predictably went no where. Freedom of speech ?.
On the other hand there are many cases where it is still unclear to many whose land / staff were actually involved,
but perhaps it was deemed un-newsworthy.
On the whole though, i think the Derbyshire Wildlife Crime lads do a pretty good job, as, obviously, do RSPB investigations.
Your headline title Mark triggered a memory for me..probably occurred in the early 1990s….we had yet another case of multiple buzzard killing, this time on a shooting estate in Aberdeenshire near Ellon. No prosecution but I managed to get the story in the local newspaper.I then get a phone call from the landowner a titled “gentleman” who first of all vociferously denied that his estate was involved but then after I gave him some chat about wildlife and pheasants he suddenly burst out with “what you dont understand Mr Dick is that killing three buzzards means less to me than killing crows”…as near a confession as I got and another fine example of the attitude of these people.
No it’s not – “Well done the RSPB, although this is yet another filmed persecution incident for which no-one has been prosecuted.” It’s another example of the timid tepid nature of the RSPB. If I was that field worker, I would be livid about the response and support from the hierarchy. These people deserve better, not only in the equipment they have to procure evidence, but the knowledge that once they have it in the can prosecution would follow. The RSPB can afford to buy the necessary optics and recorders these field people require, it will be expensive, but money well spent. It’s no good Beccy What’s-her-name wittering on about solidarity in nature if she and her ivory tower cohorts aren’t prepared to show some balls and get off their arses. If you believe in Harper’s veiled threat to the shooting community that the RSPB will be watching then you are seriously deluded, the RSPB will do as they have always done – politely cough from theatre’s wing and retire to the safety of the charter. And while I’m at it – these field workers deserve a decent salary and pay rise for what they are prepared to do.