Snospurven! Snow Buntings, Plectrophenax nivialis, and all I know about them.

 At the lower station of the Cairn Gorm funicular railway, just above Loch Morlich, not far from Aviemore and part of Britain’s most noted Ski resort, there is a small, and usually astoundingly busy car park, surrounded by high end tat shops and various small, ski-related enterprises.  Emma and I visited the Cairngorms’ eponymous mountain in the hope of catching up with the confiding Ptarmigan for which the lower slopes are noted. The heavens had, the night before, dumped impressive volumes of snow on the towering landscape, and, though some paths up to the Slopes were already well trodden, the mountains, for miles, were coated in a thick, deep blanket of white, softening their ragged edges. Snow brings a curious sense of silence, and seemed to dampen the hubbub of excited skiers, and we looked down on a winter wonderland, snow hanging in the branches of the pine woods of Rothiemurchus, all the way down to the loch shore and beyond.

Snow Bunting, Cairn Gorm, March 2023

There were, despite this being apparently the only centre of human activity for miles here, special, and especially beautiful, birds here. A small band of Snow Buntings perched on the sloping roof of the ski centre. They fluttered down to pick about in the snow beside the green, angular, corrugated iron structure, flashing black and white wings. They allowed close approach, unafraid of the people around. Eventually a small crowd of photographers, armed with long lenses, gathered, and the Snow Buntings were keen and obliging models. Charming birds of high altitudes and the high arctic, last time I visited the flock, apparently a fairly regular fixture around the lower car park and the higher Ptarmigan restaurant during the winter months, had already melted away to their breeding sites high up in the crags. Flocking, and moving around these lower slopes, and being confiding, are winter behaviours. They nest high in the rocky landscapes, males singing atop deserted and windswept crags, where people very seldom tread. Arctic/alpine specialists, they breed right up into Arctic Norway, Arctic Russia, Iceland and Arctic Canada, places of icy extremes. When I visited Arctic Norway, in high summer, ‘Snospurven,’ a ‘common breeding bird,’ were nowhere to be seen.  Both sexes become whiter in summer, as they feed around the snow line, grabbing the insects which drift up on thermals, to find themselves dropped just above the snow line, an easy meal for the Snow Buntings to take back to their chicks.  During the last ice age they thrived across Europe. What impact climate change will have on such specialists as these remains to be seen.

Snow Buntings, Cairn Gorm, March 2023

Britain’s only breeding Snow Buntings are the few hundred pairs in the highlands, but in winter, more do appear in the country, and tend to choose a habitat which couldn’t be more different to the Cairngorms. They gather in small parties on stony ground, usually on shingle beaches, and are a regular fixture in some spots along the East coast. Here, their white-and-sandy winter plumage provides remarkable camouflage, blending readily with the Carstone and iron stained Hunstanton chalk pebbles of North Norfolk.  Here too they can be confiding, on a recent trip to Titchwell it was a joy to find these small and cheerful little birds scuttling around our feet. They can turn up as far South as Kent and Essex, but favour the North and East, making landfall at night as they cross the North Sea from Scandinavia and beyond, from places which make the North Norfolk winter seem mild.

Snow Bunting on the beach at Titchwell, Norfolk, December 2022

When we returned from our fruitless trudge through the snow on Cairngorm, without having seen a Ptarmigan, and a pair of noisy, cronking Raven the only new species on our day list of two species, we found 30 or so Snow Buntings now gathered, and a small crowd of photographers admired them, from just a couple of metres away.  What a privilege to encounter such charming and special birds, at such close quarters.

Cairn Gorm in the Snow. 

Snow Bunting.

Icon of a British Christmas: Robins (Erithacus rubecula) and all I know about them.

 As the season rolls around, and I expect to get this blog online at some point during the festive period, probably, with my inevitable tardiness, around St Stephen’s Day or New Years, attention inevitably turns to a bird which to many in Britain (though not, perhaps, elsewhere) is something of a spirit of Christmas. The gardener’s friend, the European Robin (Erithacus rubecula).

A Robin singing in an English winter.

Robins are a regular feature of my parents’ Essex garden, hopping endearingly out from underneath the hedge to enjoy the seeds and mealworms left out for them. They are noted for following gardeners as they turn the soil, grabbing what unlucky worms and leatherjackets may be turned out, a practice they may have learned from following Wild Boar when those beasts roamed the Wildwood. On the continent, where humans have been perhaps less kind to small birds down the years, they still do this. However Robins have developed something of a special and unique relationship with humans, or perhaps specifically with the British. At my local RSPB reserve, Robins appear eagerly from the bushes for passing photographers, hoping to be paid in mealworms or cheese for their modelling services. When my father was recovering from illness a few years ago, he took some comfort in sitting on the patio, and enjoyed the company of our breeding pair of Robins and their offspring during the summer. He gained their confidence such that he could hold out a hand with a few sunflower seeds or dried mealworms in, and they would come and perch on it. This communion with nature contributed to his sense of wellbeing, when his family were often out at work and University, contributing in a small but life-affirming way to his recovery, and contributing greatly to my admiration for these charming little hedge birds.   More recently, when Dad put mealworms inside the shed for the robins, they learned to use a small hole he cut above the shed door to access this food supply, while the magpies and carrion crows were effectively excluded, though these bigger birds found rich pickings under the bird feeders still. They can be incredibly confiding, nesting openly in window boxes and even in sheds and garages, perhaps taking advantage of many of their predators natural and justified shyness of people.  In British gardens, at least, ones managed with few chemicals and not to be sterile lawns, they thrive in part because of, rather than despite human interactions.  While we have no ‘official’ national bird, robins were voted Britain’s favourite bird, in polls in the 1960s and the 2010s.

Robins are of course, present all year round, although the UK population swells somewhat in winter as the species undertakes a partial migration, with birds from Scandinavia pouring out to the South and West to escape the bitter arctic winter. Some, but by no means all, of the British breeding population cross the channel to France and the Mediterranean.  The oft-repeated question of whether the Robin in your garden in Summer is the same robin in your garden in winter is one which has yet to be conclusively answered, despite some sources leaning heavily in one direction or other. The best answer seems to be they may or may not be the same individual, perhaps depending on where you live. Certainly, plenty do move into the country in the Autumn, my friend Dave Roche, assistant warden at the Dungeness Bird Observatory, recalling seeing many exhausted Robins perched on the sea wall by the Power Station of a cold Autumn morning, having crossed the channel by night in search of more amenable weather conditions.

When I worked for the HOS in Southern Greece during the summer of 2011, Robins appeared with the other migrants such as blackcaps as the weather turned to Autumn, but always kept their distance from us, retreating into deep cover like all the other passerines as we passed. Although they were frequently in our ringing nets on the Island of Antikythera in the Aegean in the Autumn of 2019, I don’t recall ever seeing the shy, continental Robins out in the open, even as Wheatears and Whinchats, distant relatives of the European robin adapted for sparser habitats, would watch us from their rocky perches.  On the continent, robins have been hunted as a source of food for centuries, a practice which continues, mostly highly illegally, in places like France and Cyprus, an enraging anathema to British birders like myself.  The British have long taken a warmer view of this species, perhaps influenced by tales of Robins giving comfort to Christ when he was dying on the cross, their chests becoming stained with the blood of God, or of delivering water to tormented souls in hell, scorching their chests on their way, and it has never really been exploited in the way it has in other places, even when wild birds were still regarded as a source of food here.  In some countries, the Black Redstart, another member of the chat family, and not the Robin, is the archetypal confiding garden bird.

While friends of humans, and very much loved, Robins have a feisty side to their nature. They are famously territorial, their sweet summer and solemn winter song a warning to conspecifics not to infringe on their territories. Intraspecific fighting is a significant cause of mortality, especially for young birds, in parts of their range. My impression is of fights not usually being to the death, indeed, to waste so much of your population in this way hardly makes evolutionary sense, and while the fights are energetically expensive, they do typically end with one bird retreating to seek territory elsewhere. They breed several times in a summer, and are dedicated parents, with adults of both sexes actively provisioning the chicks in the nest. The sexes are indistinguishable, even in hand, and both males and females sing and hold territory. They are one of the few birds to sing in winter, albeit a more subdued version of their distinctive and beautiful song.

While they have long been associated with Christianity and the church, perhaps building on earlier associations in Norse mythology, their association with Christmas is much younger, and probably related to their association with the Royal Mail, whose red jackets recalled Robins’ breasts, and this led to their depiction on Christmas cards. Nevertheless they have become strongly associated with the season, and perhaps this is appropriate. Their habit of singing through the winter makes them among the most obvious of small winter birds. Cold snaps can make many birds more confiding, and Robins are no exception, as they take advantage of the shelter and microclimates, and our cultivated berry bearing plants, of our gardens to feed.  I love Robins, and a day out birdwatching in the field still feels incomplete unless I have added one to my list, whenever I am out and about in a place where they occur.

Unlike many species of birds in Britain and Europe, the Robin seems to still be undergoing a small population expansion, and the IUCN thankfully considers it of Least Concern. With seven million breeding pairs, the RSPB places the species on its Green List.  In Britain it occurs everywhere except the coldest and remotest uplands and islands, and it breeds across Europe from the Urals to Iberia, though of course its habits, migratory patterns and confiding nature are not consistent throughout its range. And I think, a small hedgerow bird of unusual confidence around humans in these islands, and a cheery splash of colour on the gloomiest, figuratively or literally, of days, it deserves all the love and admiration it gets.  So do offer them nest boxes, they like a low, open fronted box, and do feed them, they have in recent years learned to feed from hanging bird feeders in many areas, despite typically being ground feeders, and perhaps, on a reserve where they are already confident, or in your garden if you have the time and patience to invest in gaining their confidence, try dried mealworm, sunflower hearts or even a little crumb of cheese on your hand, and perhaps this magic little bird will bless you with an unforgettable close encounter.

A chain of thought regarding Transatlantic differences, Duck Stamps and the RSPB.

 In the American Meme group I have now left, there was a lot of talk of hunting funds for conservation, through levies such as the so-called 'Duck Stamps.' Duck stamps are a type of hunting licence issued in the USA, the money raised being used to fund the National Wildlife Refuges scheme. Doubtless it is a very important stream of revenue for wetland conservation in the USA. On the meme group, there was an assertion that this money from hunting is the only, or the primary way to fund conservation, and as such the whole 'Hunting is conservation' argument came about. It was a collision of many ideas, with the pro-hunt side, which was most of the Americans, using the mantra 'Hunting is conservation,' and explaining how 'Duck stamps' funded the national refuge system and how wildfowling was fundamental to wetland conservation. So determined were the American conservationists to defend this system, that their enthusiasm for it seemed to trump concerns raised by European group members about hunting in this region and in North Africa, which were angrily dismissed as outliers.

Now I am about to compare hunting in the USA to Hunting in the UK or in Europe, not right at the moment at least. But another thought occurred to me shortly afterwards. Soon there were more posts in the Meme group, referring to how birders never invest any money in wetland conservation, refuse to pay to access reserves, that only hunting has the clout, and the public participation, to raise money for conservation to be carried out effectively. And, thought I, that is where we differ.

Water Rail at RSPB Rainham Marshes

In Britain, while for sure there are wildfowl hunters, and for sure they look after some coastal wetlands, much of it fairly well, such that it provides good breeding habitat for waders, raptors and invertebrates outside the shooting season, but the way we look after Wetland 'refuges' for conservation is thus: The RSPB, and the local Wildlife Trusts.

Stonechat at RSPB Rainham Marshes

Conservationists in the UK, by which I mean non-professionals who care about and support nature conservation, do not generally buy hunting licences. Instead, they join the RSPB, investing sums comparable with those spent on 'Duck Stamps' in the USA. We do spend money on nature, and on nature for nature's sake. And we have achieved remarkable results through this. Minsmere in Suffolk, owned by the RSPB, is a former MOD range, and it was the stepping stone Avocets and Marsh Harriers used to recolonise the UK. Now Marsh Harriers, and Bearded Tits, breed at Rainham Marshes, another former military range within Greater London. Spoonbills and Bitterns have bred at Fairburn Ings, a former coal mining site near Leeds. At Old Moor near Doncaster, Slavonian Grebes breed annually, and Lakenheath Fen, a former carrot farm in the Brecks, Bittern, Bearded Tit and Common Crane breed, a species which was extinct in Britain a century ago. All without money from hunting, with management largely built on monthly and annual donations from a million members. The RSPB is our model of conservation and it works.

Lapwing at RSPB Frampton Marsh, Lincolnshire

It coexists with free markets, taking from the state only money available to any landowners who manage their land sympathetically for nature, and heritage money from the National Lottery. It has brought back species to these islands, and become a global expert in wetland creation and restoration without shots being fired in sport at all. Its predator control is not above criticism, of course and some regard it as unduly friendly with shooting organisations, as illustrated by the debacle at RSPB Strumpshaw Fen a few years ago, where gamekeepers were allowed onto the site to kill some much photographed foxes. However it walks a tightrope here of course and deserves, in my view, some slack. There are people in the shooting community, unnerved by the RSPB's excellent work in raptor protection, who love to stir the pot and set their opponents, in mainstream conservation and largely urban hippy 'animal rights' proponents, against each other, despite their common cause at least where it comes to threatened wildlife and habitats.

View from RSPB Wallasea Island, Essex

But its achievements at a national level are remarkable. Incredible. It is our model of conservation, Britain's proof that hunting and conservation are not inextricably linked, and I think that is bloody awesome. They go beyond land management of course, into campaigning, recently becoming involved in the discussion surrounding the draconian restrictions on environmental protest being discussed in parliament, and campaigning against particularly damaging developments threatening important wildlife sites. Their membership is huge and diverse.

Goldfinch at RSPB Frampton Marsh, Lincolnshire

Compared to what they have in other parts of the world, we are extraordinarily fortunate to have the RSPB, and can be justifiably proud of it, alongside the county Wildlife Trusts and the WWT of course.

Lockdown Walks, A retrospective. 25th April-

Wirksworth - Carsington Trig Point - Middleton - Stoney Wood. 25th April 2020

Today I walked out of Wirksworth along the green part of Summer Lane, through its ancient leafyness and then down through the blooming fields of dandelions. I joined the road to Callow and accessed the Trig point near Carsington. It boasts a good view of the surrounding countryside and Carsington Water itself. The water was clear and calm, and looked cool beneath the blazing summer sky.

A field of Dandelions close to Carsington Water. 

I made my way down to the end of the reservoir, where Reed Warblers sang in the small reed bed, their curious, rhythmic song, perching openly high in the reeds. A long-staying pair of Goldeneye, a beautiful, black, white and bottle green duck, a wintering species in these parts, a tree nester of forest fringed Northern lakes in summer, was a welcome sighting, and in the distance I caught sight of the wintering Great Northern Diver, something of a 'star' species at Carsington with up to three individuals wintering on site pretty much annually. The size of a Goose, thick-set, if a Great Crested Grebe is Bruce Banner the Great Northern Diver is the Incredible Hulk, this bird spends much of its time underwater, hunting fish with a bill like a broadsword, so seeing it at rest on the surface was unusual. 

A Garden Warbler sang in the increasingly verdant trees which fringe the lake. The leaves had really begun to burst, obscuring the water at many points.

Handsome sheep near Middleton Top.

On my return journey I encountered another stunning male Redstart, near Middle Peak Quarry, a species I had not expected to find so abundant within a walk of my home, and a pair of Red Legged Partridges, an introduced game species were visible by the path through the quarry, and represented something of a local 'tick.'

Record shot of Red Legged Partridge in Middle Peak Quarry. 

 

Birds Seen: Canada Goose, Greylag, Gadwall, Mallard, Tufted Duck, Goldeneye, Red Legged Partridge, Pheasant, Great Northern Diver, Great Crested Grebe, Buzzard, Coot, Oystercatcher, Lapwing, Black Headed Gull, Lesser Black Backed Gull, Stock Dove, Woodpigeon, Magpie, Jackdaw, Carrion Crow, Blue Tit, Great Tit, Swallow, Willow Warbler, Chiffchaff, Reed Warbler*, Garden Warbler*, Wren, Blackbird, Song Thrush, Mistle Thrush, Robin, Redstart, House Sparrow, Pied Wagtail, Bullfinch, Linnet, Chaffinch. 

Butterflies seen: Orange Tip, Brimstone, Peacock, Small Tortoiseshell, Green Veined White, Small White

Wirksworth-High Peak Trail. 26th April. 

On the last day of the sunshine, I took a stroll from Wirksworth up towards the High Peak Trail, aiming for Ramshaw Rocks. I did not get there, but we passed through damp tunnels and encountered a couple more showy male Redstarts in the fields near Middle Peak Quarry, and a Skylark sang near the turning for Carsington. 

Birds Seen: Pheasant, Stock Dove, Woodpigeon, Jackdaw, Carrion Crow, Raven, Blue Tit, Great Tit, Skylark, Swallow, Long Tailed Tit, Willow Warbler, Chiffchaff, Blackcap, Whitethroat, Wren, Robin, Redstart, Dunnock, Chaffinch, Linnet, Goldfinch. 

Butterflies seen: Green Veined White, Red Admiral, Peacock, Small Tortoiseshell, Orange Tip. 

Wirksworth-Carsington Water-Middleton Top

Natty and I walked, in very changeable weather, across the fields from Summer Lane, to the Trig Point I'd visited a couple of days before, which we now knew was called Hasker Farm, when a dark grey weather front rolled in from the North, the Heavens opening and hastening our descent to Carsington Water.
Here, after the short, sharp shower, we found Reed Buntings singing in the Hopton Reed Beds. There were hundreds of hirundines over the water, and a couple of Swifts, once supposedly called storm swallows for their habit of appearing in front of heavy rain, were among them, our first of the year.  and Moorhen chicks were being fed. We returned via Middleton Top, across fields of cattle, where small Bullocks briefly surrounded us, though we bravely walked on, and upon reaching an invisible line, the Bullocks gave up following.

Countryside with a view of Carsington Water. 

There was a bright sunburst over Middlepeak Quarry, and we enjoyed the sight of a rainbow over Wirksworth. 
Highlight of the day occurred when, drawn by the anxious chatter and alarm calls of Blackbirds and Blue Tits, we discovered Tawny Owl, perched openly in a tree in a tiny roadside copse on the outskirts of town, mobbed frantically by small passerines. In a remarkable encounter, this shy nocturnal predator, so seldom encountered in the daylight, looked us directly in the eye as we stood on a public road.

Tawny Owl. 

Birds Seen: Canada Goose, Greylag Goose, Mute Swan, Mallard, Tufted Duck, Pheasant, Great Crested Grebe, Moorhen, Coot, Oystercatcher, Black Headed Gull, Woodpigeon, Tawny Owl, Swift*, Magpie, Jackdaw, Carrion Crow, Blue Tit, Great Tit, Skylark, Swallow, Chiffchaff, Reed Warbler, Blackcap, Whitethroat, Wren, Blackbird,Song Thrush, Mistle Thrush, Robin, Dunnock, Chaffinch, Linnet, Goldfinch. 

Dartford Warblers at Arne

Dartford Warblers

Dartford Warblers (Sylvia undata) are among the scarcest and most enigmatic passerines to grace these islands, and surely among the most charming. When vast tracts of heathland covered much of Southern England, the species was not uncommon, and it is named for Dartford Heath in North Kent, from which it has been absent for decades.  Perhaps more at home in Mediterranean Europe, it is on the edge of its range in Great Britain. With the increasing development and fragmentation of this habitat, sitting as it does in desirable Surrey and Dorset, it underwent decades of decline.  It is also said to be particularly vulnerable to predation by domestic cats, which can exclude it from small scraps of habitat saved from housing developments. An exclusive insectivore, and largely sedentary species, its greatest enemy is the British winter, persistent snow can wipe a colony out, and a cold winter in the early 1960s nearly did for the British population entirely, just a few pairs appearing after the snow finally melted.  However, amid great conservation effort and with possibly a small helping hand from climate change, the species is beginning to recover. 

Dartford Warbler at Arne.

There are a few places where these birds can reliably be found. Arne, and surrounding fragments of heath, and Chobham Common in Surrey, where I first met the species, host good numbers year round. They are vulnerable to disturbance, and responsible birders do not go tramping through the heather at any time of year. Occasionally individuals turn up on the coast in Southern England, undertaking short movements to avoid the very worst of the weather.

A view from Arne.

It was at the RSPB’s magnificent pristine heathland reserve at Arne, near Wareham in Dorset, that I had my most recent, and most magical encounter with these gorgeous little passerines. A solo expedition to one of my favourite corners of the country in the hope of catching up with Nightjar (I did, but not enough to blog about), I camped near this magnificent spot, a large tract of Dorset coastal heath on Poole Harbour overlooking Brownsea Island, managed impeccably for conservation, and took a long stroll among its heathland rides.  Arne was abuzz with dragonflies and butterflies and hoverflies, and 90 common spotted orchids grew along the bank of one small pond which must have hosted half a dozen different Odonata, including an iridescent Downy Emerald and a striking pair of Emperors including an Ovipositing female. It was becoming a good day.

Emperor Dragonfly (Anax imperator) ovipositing at Arne. 

 It was the song of the Dartford Warbler that first caught my attention. Imagine the song of a Whitethroat (Sylvia communis), and consider the qualities and notes which ensure the song is often described as “scratchy.”   Now distil those scratchy qualities, concentrate that Sylvia scratchiness,  andyou will begin to imagine the song of the male Dartford Warbler.  The male caught my eye first too, a small, dark coloured bird, with a longish tail, proportions somewhere between a Cetti’s Warbler and a Long Tailed Tit. He alighted briefly at the top of the heather, sang a few notes, and dropped back into the thick tangle of waist high vegetation.  He reappeared and my eyes strained to see his features in the sun glare, his dark blue-grey back and wings contrasting little with his dark pink-red underparts, and he had an air of cultivated scruffiness.  Rooting in the gorse he popped up briefly with a beak full of spiders, before dropping down to stuff his spiders into the expectant mouth of a scruffy fledgling, brown and distinctly smaller than the adult, which had emerged from the vegetation.   The fledglings and the female never left the thick heather and gorse, appearing to my eye only briefly before returning to the shelter of the thick heather canopy, but the male returned to his commanding lookout and sang, re-stating his claim to this his fragment of the coastal heath, the precious resource upon which his family depend.  Perhaps by remaining in this prominent position he also provided a distraction display focussing the attention of birders, and any would-be predators, on him, allowing the more vulnerable youngsters to slip away.

It was a magical moment with these scruffy, charismatic little survivors, and conservation icons of the lowland heath.  It was heartening to know that, with many small birds finding their breeding cycles disrupted by the late snow this spring, at least some of this most cold-sensitive warblers had successfully fledged broods. This family appeared to be doing well.

Open Letter #2 Open letter to the RSPB regarding the campaign to ban driven shooting and save the threatened Hen Harrier.

I am writing firstly to express my thanks and gratitude for your wonderful feature in this season’s edition of Nature’s Home, in which you address the plight of the Hen Harrier (Circus cyaneus) at the hands of criminals within the grouse shooting industry. However, while I support the RSPB’s campaign to see grouse shooting properly licenced, I felt compelled to express my disagreement with the implication that those who want to see driven grouse shooting consigned to the dustbin of history are not “pragmatic,” and the curious efforts to defend the ‘sport’ on subsequent pages, which included quotes from the Moorland Association, a front group for the grouse shooting industry.

The campaign to criminalise Grouse shooting is a grassroots one, and at Derwent Water this August I was among many people, protesting the Hen Harriers’ plight, who largely agreed that radical change is needed. The petition, started by Mark Avery, has attracted over 18,500 signatures, and even cosmetics chain Lush has taken up the cause. Moved by the illegal killing of Bowland Betty, a Hen Harrier who was raised not far from my alma mater at Lancaster,  in countryside so beautiful yet so tragically devoid of sky dancing harriers, a truly grass roots movement to save the species has begun and is gaining momentum. Statements like those in the article seem designed to take away that momentum.  Remember that popular movements have led to the criminalisation of Fox Hunting, and prevented the sale of the Forests. It seems very strange indeed that the RSPB would, in one line, seek to so undermine just such a movement, designed to save the Hen Harrier, and also destroy an industry which, by the RSPB’s own admission, probably has a net negative impact on upland conservation.  

It is worth noting that a great range of approaches have failed to address the problem of Hen Harrier persecution, as gamekeepers and their landed masters continue to prove pathologically incapable of leaving Hen Harriers and other raptors alone, in spite of criminal penalties for raptor persecution, endless photocalls in such unsavoury company as the Countryside Alliance,  and sympathetic spots on the Really Wild Show, emphasising the role of keepering in sustaining the habitat of certain upland waders on their Southern and Western range margins.  Co-operation does not work, and it is too late for another attempt. The RSPB has gently suggested to estates that they may wish to shift to walked up shooting, a form of grouse shooting which may be better equipped to co-exist with natural raptor populations, and the Game and Wildlife Conservation Trust threw the suggestions back in our faces, and then no more was heard.  Perhaps cold, hard legislation, casting these landlords and their servants as the criminals they are, will finally represent a language of approach which they will understand.

I suspect the RSPB fears criminalisation will alienate some of their supporters in the uplands, but I wonder if this will be the case if the other issues surrounding grouse shooting are fully explained to them. Exaggerated claims of the value of shooting, which is heavily subsidised from the public purse, are made by its supporters, but one wonders what these can be. Surely if a profit was forthcoming, public subsidies would not be required, and how can an industry which excludes ordinary tourists from the uplands when the heather is in bloom and the moors at the height of their expansive purple beautiful, be beneficial to rural economies? Something in their claims does not add up. Aside from the economic damage, and damage to rural peoples’ quality of life, caused by grouse shooting, the overuse of burning reduces floristic diversity, damages peat bogs and peaty moorland soils, contributing to the problem of climate change.

With this in mind, I return to the question of why the RSPB appears to be brushing off the popular movement for criminalising grouse shooting.  I worry that the commitment to non-interference in field sports, as the bloody slaughter of wildlife in our countryside is so euphemistically called, which stems from the heroic ladies from Didsbury’s fear of their husbands, is causing the RSPB to fight the battle to save raptors with one hand behind its back.  Clearly this would need to be abandoned if the RSPB was to offer its full support to the campaign for a ban. I do not ask the RSPB to become an opponent of shooting, merely to take a “pragmatic” approach, giving full attention to the needs of threatened wildlife like the Hen Harrier.   Do you perhaps also fear losing the “Royal” prefix? Perhaps you may, but for what gains in the grassroots conservation movement?

The Hen Harrier needs saving, and the campaign to ban driven grouse shooting may the best hope it has, especially given its broad public support, unlike the Moorland Association, whose PR team you allow column space in Nature’s Home. The Moorland association wants to translocate Hen Harrier chicks away from grouse moors under threat of criminal prosecution, in a classic display of the gangster tactics we have come to expect from such front groups and the criminals they represent.  Why are you giving them the oxygen of publicity while dismissing a popular campaign?

 The criminals stalking our uplands seem understand no negotiation, if the last couple of centuries of persecution are any indication, and as long as they can hide their crimes in the vastness of the open moorland, will continue to kill Hen Harriers and escape prosecution. It is far harder to conceal a grouse shoot than conceal a trap, or the destruction of a nest, and hard to grasp public subsidy, or widely advertise an illicit one.  Monitors from the RSPCA and the League Against Cruel Sports already help the law enforcement agencies crack down on illegal hunting with dogs, and I have no doubt that such or similar organisations will eagerly keep an eye on walked up shoots to ensure no grouse are driven from cover by beaters.   The campaign to criminalise driven shooting can occur alongside the campaign to licence it, but please do not undermine the former by implying it is not pragmatic, or by giving column inches to its vocal opponents.  It is the most exciting conservation campaign in the UK to gain public support for decades.

Many thanks again for helping to spread the word about the Hen Harrier, and I remain a loyal supporter of the RSPB, and hope to remain so for years to come.

The War on Wildlife I

*I wrote this blog in May, but did not publish for some reason A few tweaks have been made, and better late than never, perhaps.*

In another chapter of their ongoing bid to cement their position as real-life pantomime villains, the Conservative government in their wisdom to consulted in May on the legalisation of the destruction of Robin (Erithacus rubecula) Starling (Sturnus vulgaris) and Pied Wagtail (Motacilla alba) nests and the killing of their eggs, which is currently a criminal offence under the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981. Now, I dislike Tory ideology intensely; I make no claims of political neutrality. Under current plans, the eggs and nests of these much-loved species will be added to the General Licence, essentially a list of agricultural pests and invasive species that farmers and other land managers feel it necessary to control.  There is no suggestion that such unobtrusive and much loved birds as the gardener’s friend the Robin are pests, so the decision remains a mysterious one.   However this suggestion has come directly from the statutory body responsible for delivering Nature Conservation in England, the logically named “Natural England.”  Intriguingly, unlike tough decisions made by Natural England in the past, such as the deeply troubling decision to licence the destruction of Buzzard nests on a pheasant farm, made under the threat of the funding axe and of judicial review from the powerful game shooting lobby, and still an admission of weakness, the legalised Robin-killing was offered apparently voluntarily; there was no public call to be allowed to destroy robins nests, no clear source of external pressure, Natural England simply offered the helpful suggestion that it “would not have appreciable conservation impacts."

Our unofficial national bird, a target for the Tories.

In the interests of proportion, the consultation ideas could indeed be worse; they also propose to remove the Jay (Garrulus glandarius) from the General Licence, as it is seldom cited as an important agricultural pest, and also to offer some protection to Atlantic Herring and Lesser Black Backed Gulls (Larus argentatus and L. fuscus respectively), both declining species endemic to North Western Europe.  They suggest that Robin and Pied Wagtail nests may present a hazard to human health if they occur in air vents, for instance, yet do not propose similar measures for hole nesters such as Blue and Great tits, though their nests occasionally raise the same issues, and one hopes this distinction is made the basis of an understanding of their ecology.  A lost nest, though a considerable blow, will not necessarily rule the parents out of the gene pool, Robins breed more than once a year and can live for several years.  Blue and Great tits make a single annual nesting attempt and seldom live far beyond 18 months.   However the potential for worse moves does not validate these awful ones, and I’m going to stop with them lest our malevolent rulers get wind and put them in the next consultation.

The declining Starling, the target of politically motivated persecution.

The reason for this strange proposal probably lies in the unusual choice of Natural England chair, as identified in an excellent blog post at Pride’s Purge (http://tompride.wordpress.com/2014/05/18/heres-the-real-reason-the-tories-are-allowing-the-destruction-of-robin-eggs-and-nests/ accessed 29/05/2014) Andrew Sells is not an ecologist, he is an accountant and entrepreneur, who includes major development companies in his portfolio.  He is also a major Tory donor, having given over £100000 to the party.  It is easy for one to suspect he may have bought his position with Natural England, despite repetitious denials from the government, and he certainly appears to be exploiting it.  Adaptable Robins and Pied Wagtails, and unfussy hole-nesting Starlings can often present problems for development companies, as their presence can hold up developments when they are scheduled for the Spring, as work must, of course, stop when nests are found, necessitating brief postponements.  All three birds are adept at exploiting the nesting opportunities provided by brownfield sites, utilising cavities in abandoned buildings or industrial apparatus, or hiding their nests in developing scrub. Pied Wagtails frequently roost in town centres and can eke out a living picking invertebrates out from between paving slabs. Now Brownfield sites are valuable to developers, and this change could free developers from some of the shackles of basic environmental responsibility and compassion.  While the consultation does not explicitly allow the removal of nests in the interests of development- they can only, in theory, be destroyed when human health is threatened-it does make it markedly easier for any company to break the rules.  Nests are currently occasionally removed or destroyed in the interests of human health; doing so is a licensable activity, and some licences applied for are granted.  The government, already has a licensing system which does not appear gravely dysfunctional, licensing some but not all nest removals.   If successful in implementing these proposals, there will be no need for any such application, no reporting procedure, no monitoring of the number of nests destroyed, and an assumption by the law enforcement agencies that nest destruction is legal.    These changes will clearly make breaking the law much easier for developers, like the business owned by the chair of Natural England. Despite their claims to the contrary, Natural England and Andrew Sells know this is the case. Indeed, it all smells a lot like a clever ruse by the government and its stooges.

This is actually a White Wagtail. It's okay, because it lives outside Natural England's jurisdiction.

 Combined with the badger cull, shamefully recommencing as I type, and the government’s decision to continue subsidising recreational shooting, most of the cost of the shotgun licencing system, for example, is met from the public purse, at the Prime Minister’s personal insistence, during such times as we are told we cannot afford the most basic of public services or the weakest environmental standards, and at whatever cost to our moorlands, mammalian predators and birds of prey, the government certainly appears to be waging a war on wildlife. It is relaxing the planning laws, promoting fracking, known to have caused serious water pollution in the USA, and disempowering conservation bodies, replacing their informed leaders with accountants and venture capitalists, and it wants to legalise the slaughter of Robins. The greenest government ever has revealed itself to be an ecological pantomime villain.