When Springwatch ended (in the spring!) we were all trying to assimilate the fact that five male Hen Harriers had ‘disappeared’ from active nests in Lancashire and Cumbria. Since then a highly experienced nest photographer, Gordon Yates, has written a Guest Blog here explaining how unlikely this is to happen (and the photographs on this…
Tag: hen harrier
Don’t get too attached to Holly and Chance
Members of the public will be able to follow the movements of two female Hen Harriers tracked via satellite tags as part of the RSPB Hen Harrier LIFE+ Project. A new website will enable us all to follow the movements of Holly and Chance as they travel around the country. For security reasons, in other…
Guest blog – Puppet Sex and Stanley Johnson by Lyn Ebbs
By education and training I am a microbiologist and worked in the NHS and biotech sector. I finished my working career in clinical research and patient safety in the pharmaceutical industry, so am a firm believer in evidence-based science. I’ve been a member of the RSPB for many years and started volunteering for them when…
Inaction speaks louder than words
The most remarkable aspect of the preliminary results of the 2014 national Peregrine survey (organised by the BTO but I read about it here) is that the UK population of this species has hardly changed in 12 years – a 3% increase since 2002. The last Peregrine I saw was a couple of weeks ago…
Two AGMs – RSPB
Ahead of today’s RSPB AGM, Martin Harper posted a very robust blog about the RSPB’s position on driven grouse shooting (click here). Just as I did yesterday, Martin asked the question whether there are any grouse moors out there that do all the right things. He clearly doesn’t know of any (which makes licensing a…
Two AGMs – H&OT
Today it is the Hawk and Owl Trust’s AGM. On the H&OT website is their annual report which has these interesting lines in it: ‘For the Hawk and Owl Trust positive habitat management away from the grouse moors will be one of the actions that will hold the key to the future of the hen…
Why licensing won’t work for grouse moors.
Our e-petition asking the Westminster government to ban driven grouse shooting passed 20,000 signatures recently. The momentum is growing all the time. I wonder how many signatures we will have amassed by 21 January? We’re not even half way there yet. I’m often asked why the RSPB doesn’t support a ban on driven grouse shooting…
Regulatory failure
There’s an excellent post today on the Raptor Persecution Scotland blog about what manner of things might be in any grouse meat that you eat. Watch out Henry! I wonder how much medicine from medicated grit gets into Hen Harriers, Peregrines and other wildlife through ingestion? Has anyone looked at that? Game meat, including…
Oscar Dewhurst – Bittern and Marsh Harrier
Oscar writes: When I spent some time at Minsmere in the spring of 2014 one of the things I saw but never managed to photograph was the confrontations between Bitterns and Marsh Harriers. Whenever a Marsh Harrier hunting over the reed bed happened to pass near a Bittern’s nest the latter would shoot up out…
Let’s get a debate in parliament!
I’m grateful to the ‘TeamforNature’ (on Twitter @MMNNActionUK) for setting up a thunderclap in support of the idea of getting a debate in the Westminster parliament on the future of driven grouse shooting. You can add your name to this thunderclap if you have a Twitter, Facebook and/or tumblr social media account. Then, provided we…