After three days at the Bird Fair I could do with a rest but I am on a secret mission to Scotland this week – I’m sure I will be able to tell you about some of it some time, perhaps. Tomorrow’s blog will be about a book that I think that many of you…
Tag: hen harrier
Last word from me on grouse and harriers – for a while – probably
I’d like to thank all the contributors to the lively debate here over the last week on the way forward in the conflict between grouse shooting interests and the life, liberty and pursuit of happiness of our cherished raptors. But seriously, thank you for joining in, especially to those from the shooting community. Did we…
Quotas – has their time come?
Driven grouse shooting is not without its benefits to the economy and ecology of the uplands although we could argue for years (and have done!) over exactly what are those benefits. The trouble with it is that it is based on the illegal killing of several protected raptor species (most notably, but not exclusively, golden…
Coping with grouse shooting and coping with hen harriers
Given the scale of illegal killing of raptors associated with driven grouse shooting it would be fair enough, in my opinion, for conservation organisations to campaign for the abolition of grouse shooting – but none of them yet does. Instead, conservationists are putting their members’ money into trying to find a legal way out for…
How glorious? The illegality at the heart of grouse shooting.
Today is the traditional start of the grouse shooting season – the Glorious 12th. Few red grouse will be shot today, but between now and the 10 December the season will be on, and guns will be willing to pay upwards of £1500 a day for shooting their share of 200,000 red grouse shot in…
An interesting report
At the Game Fair – I said those couple of days could keep this blog going for ages – I picked up a report by the National Gamekeepers Organisation considering the state of nature on commercial shoots. It’s an interesting read. With the snappy title ‘Gamekeepers and Wildlife’ this report compiles information from a postal…
Something for the weekend sir?
I love farmers. Well, admittedly not all of them, but then I don’t love all birdwatchers, all RSPB members or all of anything – maybe all hen harriers? But I do love the fact that some farmers are doing a fantastic job with the help of my taxpayer’s money on their farms. We have come…
Game Fair snippets
Wouldn’t you be p*ssed off?: I have noticed that there are some differences between men and women but those organising toilet facilities appear not to have twigged these. At an all day event there comes a time when nature calls and you look for the loos. On Saturday afternoon I strolled briskly into the gents…
Bird list USA
This is just a list of birds I saw in the USA between 3 May and 15 June. If you are an American birder and think there is anything odd about this list – things I should have seen but haven’t listed or things I claim to have seen but seem very unlikely – then…
Guest blog – by ‘Mr White’
Dr Mark Avery – supporter of vulnerable creatures in the sporting field by Mr White, ‘Reservoir Cats‘ Mark Avery, who ‘died’ on April 28th aged 53, spent the best years of his working life as Director of Conservation for the RSPB. A public holiday has been declared in Norfolk to celebrate his loss. Arthur Balsam,…