Two things; today’s weekly update from DEFRA and an interesting remark on this morning’s Farming Today. 1. DEFRA’s weekly update (click here) is the usual less than transparent and informative list but you don’t often see Long-tailed Skua mentioned on a UK government website – might this be a first? Many of us heard about…
Category: bird flu
An update on bird flu
There’s a very good article in October Birdwatch by David Campbell – of course it doesn’t make happy reading but it covers the ground and the issues well, including some interesting international aspects. As the article says ‘…losses were catastrophic’. On Farming Today this morning (click here about 7 minutes into the programme) there was…
Bird flu – some comparisons between 2021 and 2022
This year and last: this time last year, from the end of July to the beginning of October, there were hardly any positive cases of bird flu in wild birds recorded by the government surveillance scheme. In 10 full weeks there were only three weeks with positive cases, though these were all Great Skuas, and…
Bird flu strategy for England and Wales
In response to this document published yesterday I said this (in a series of tweets, reproduced here below with typos corrected) and the RSPB said this (lower still): UK context: this is by and for England and Wales. It rather ignores the fact that birds fly around between England and Wales and Scotland. For example,…
Good news on Hen Harriers
This news from Natural England is very welcome – for two main reasons. First, it is good news, and second, it is fairly informative and doesn’t look as though it was written by the shooting industry. 119 Hen Harrier chicks fledged from 49 nests (actually from the 34 successful nests, and some nests were re-nests…